


PR 4825 
.J3 n67 
1890b 
Copy 1 



<^6 




♦ ' 



'i? 






X^/V 



"'/i ''*•<'] 






?T- 




ALTEMUS' IDLE HOUR SERIES. 



No. 1. 





PAlL^D£LPMlA. 

Menr.y/\lte/aus 

.507 -509-611 -.513 CHERRY ST 



ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS BY HENRY ALTEMUS, 1890. 



1^ 



ALTEMUS EDITION 



THE 



IDLE THOUGHTS 



OF 



AN IDLE FELLOW 



A BOOK FOR 



An Idle Holiday 



BY 



JEROME K. JEROME 

Auihor of "Ott the Stage — and Off." 



PHILADELPHIA : 

HENRY ALTEMUS 
1 890 



Entered According to Act of Congress in the Year 1890. 
By henry ALTEMUS. 



TO 
THE VERT DEAR AND WELL-BELOVED 

Fr^i B N D 

OF MY PROSPEROUS AND EVIL DAYS— 

TO THE FRIEND 
WHO, THOUGH, IN THE EARLY STAGES OF OUR ACQUAINT- 
ANCESHIP. DID OFTTIMES DISAGREE WITH 
ME, HAS SINCE BECOME TO BE MY 
VERY WARMEST COMRADE— 

TO THE FRIEND 

WHO, HOWEVER OFTEN I MAY PUT HIM OUT, NEVER 

(NOW) UPSETS ME IN REVENGE- 
TO THE FRIEND 

WHO, TREATED WITH MARKED COLDNESS BY ALL THE 
FEMALE MEMBERS OF MY HOUSEHOLD, AND RE- 
GARDED WITH SUSPICION BY MY VERY DOG, 
NEVERTHELESS, SEEMS DAY BY DAY TO BE 
MORE DRAWN BY ME, AND, IN RETURN, 
TO MORE AND MORE IMPREGNATE 
ME WITH THE ODOUR OF 
HIS FRIENDSHIP— 

TO THE FRIEND 

WHO NEVER TELLS ME OF MY FAULTS, NEVER WANTS TO 

BORROW MONEY, AND NEVER TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF— 

TO THE COMPANION OF MY IDLE HOURS, 

THE SOOTHER OF MY SORROWS, 

THE CONFIDANT OF MY JOYS AND HOPES— 

MY OLDEST AND STRONGEST 



©I P E, 



k 



THIS LITTLE VOLUME 
IS 

GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED. 




I 

i 

j 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

On being Hard Up 9 

On being in the Blues 22 

On Vanity and Vanities 32 

On Getting on in the World 47 

On being Idle 60 

On Being in Love 73 

On the Weather 88 

On Cats and Dogs 105 

On being Shy 128 

On Babies 143 

On Eating and Drinking 158 

On Furnished Apartments 174 

On Dress and Deportment 191 

On Memory 207 




i 



PREFACE. 



One or two friends to whom I showed these 
papers in MS. having observed that they were 
not half bad ; and some of my relations having 
promised to buy the book, if it ever came out, 
I feel I have no right to longer delay its issue. 
But for this, as one may say, public demand, I, 
perhaps, should not have ventured to offer these 
mere ''idle thoughts" of mine as mental food 
for the English-speaking peoples of the earth. 
What readers ask now-a-days in a book is that 
it should improve, instruct, and elevate. This 
book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot con- 
scientiously recommend it for any useful pur- 
poses whatever. All I can suggest is, that 
when you get tired of reading ''the best 
hundred books," you may take this up for half 
an hour. It will be a change. 




i 



THE 

IDLE Thoughts 



OF 



AN IDLE FELLOW. 



ON BEING HARD UP. 

TT is almost remarkable thing. I sat down 
^ with the full intention of writing something 
clever and original; but for the life of me I 
can't think of anything clever and original — 
at least, not at this moment. The only thing 
I can think about now is being hard up. I 
suppose having my hands in my pockets has 
made me think about this. I always do sit with 
my hands in my pockets, except when I am in 
the company of my sisters, my cousins, or my 
aunts ; and they kick up such a shindy — I 

9 



lo On Being Hard Up. 

should say expostulate so eloquently upon the 
subject — that I have to give in and take them 
out — my hands I mean. The chorus to their 
objections is that it is not gentlemanly. I am 
hanged if I can see why. I could understand 
its not being considered gentlemanly to put 
your hands in other people's pockets (especially 
by the other people), but how, O ye sticklers 
for what looks this and what looks that, can 
putting his hands in his own pockets make a 
man less gentle ! Perhaps you are right though. 
Now I come to think of it, I have heard some 
people grumble most savagely when doing it. 
But they were mostly old gentlemen. We 
young fellows, as a rule, are never quite at ease 
unless we have our hands in our pockets. We 
are awkward and shifty. We are like what a 
music-hall Lion Comique would be without his 
opera hat, if such a thing can be imagined. 
But let us put our hands in our trousers' pockets, 
and let there be some small change in the right 
hand one and a bunch of keys in the left, and 
we will face a female post-office clerk. 

It is a little difficult to know what to do with 
your hands, even in your pockets, when there 



On Beifig Hard Up. 1 1 

is nothing else there. Years ago when ray 
whole capital would occasionally come down to 
'' what in town the people call a bob," I would 
recklessly spend a penny of it, merely for the 
sake of having the change, all in coppers, to 
jingle. You don't feel nearly so hard up with 
elevenpence in your pocket as you do with a 
shilling. Had I been ''La-di-da," that im- 
pecunious youth about whom we superior folk 
are so sarcastic, I would have changed my 
penny for two ha'pennies. 

I can speak with authority on the subject of 
being hard up. I have been a provincial actor. 
If further evidence be required, which I do not 
think likely, I can add that I have been a " gen- 
tleman connected with the press." I have 
lived on fifteen shillings a week. I have lived 
a week on ten, owing the other five; and I 
have lived for a fortnight on a great-coat. 

It is wonderful what an insight into domestic 
economy being really hard up gives one. If 
you want to find out the value of money, live 
on fifteen shillings a week, and see how much 
you can put by for clothes and recreation. You 
will find out that it is worth while to wait for 



1 2 On Being Hard Up. 

the farthing change, that it is worth while to 
walk a mile to save a penny, that a glass of beer 
is a luxury to be indulged in only at rare inter- 
vals, and that a collar can be worn for four 
days. 

Try it just before you get married. It will 
be excellent practice. Let your son and heir 
try it before sending him to college. He won't 
grumble at a hundred a year pocket money 
then. There are some people to whom it would 
do a world of good. There is that delicate 
blossom, who can't drink any claret under 
ninety-four, and who would as soon think 
of dining off cat's meat as off plain roast 
mutton. You do come across these poor 
wretches now and then, though, to the credit 
of humanity, they are principally confined to 
that fearful and wonderful society known only 
to lady novelists. I never hear of one of these 
creatures discussing a menu card, but I feel a 
mad desire to drag him off to the bar of some 
common east-end public-house, and cram a 
six-penny dinner down his throat — beefsteak 
pudding, fourpence; potatoes, a penny; half 
a pint of porter, a penny. The recollection of 



On Being Hard Up. 



13 



it (and the mingled fragrance of beer, tobacco, 
and roast pork generally leaves a vivid impres- 
sion) might induce him to turn up his nose a 
little less frequently in the future at everything 
that is put before him. Then, there is that 
generous party, the cadger's delight, who is so 
free with his small change, but who never 
thinks of paying his debts. It might teach 
even him a little common sense. *'I always 
give the waiter a shilling. One can't give the 
fellow less, you know," explained a young 
Government clerk with whom I was lunching 
the other day in Regent Street. I agreed with 
him as to the utter impossibility of making it 
elevenpence ha'penny; but, at the same time, 
I resolved to one day decoy him to an" eating- 
house I remembered near Covent Garden, 
where the waiter, for the better discharge of his 
duties, goes about in his shirt sleeves — and very 
dirty sleeves they are too, when it gets near the 
end of the month. I know that waiter. If my 
friend gives him anything beyond a penny, the 
man will insist on shaking hands with him then 
and there, as a mark of his esteem : of that I 
feel sure. 



14 On Being Hard Up. 

There have been a good many funny things 
said and written about hardupishness, but the 
reality is not funny, for all that. It is not 
funny to have to haggle over pennies. It isn't 
funny to be thought mean and stingy. It isn't 
funny to be shabby, and to be ashamed of your 
address. No, there is nothing at all funny in 
poverty — to the poor. It is hell upon earth to 
a sensitive man ; and many a brave gentleman, 
who would have faced the labours of Hercules, 
has had his heart broken by its petty miseries. 

It is not the actual discomforts themselves 
that are hard to bear. Who would mind rough- 
ing it a bit, if that were all it meant ? What 
cared Robinson Crusoe for a patch on his 
trousers ? — Did he wear trousers ? I forget ; or 
did he go about like he does in the panto- 
mimes ? What did it matter to him if his toes 
did stick out of his boots? and what if his 
umbrella was a cotton one, so long as it kept 
the rain off. His shabbiness did not trouble 
him : there were none of his friends round 
about to sneer at him. 

Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being 
known to be poor that is the sting. It is not 



On Being Hard Up. 1 5 

cold that makes a man without a greatcoat hurry- 
along so quickly. It is not all shame at telling 
lies — which he knows will not be believed — 
that makes him turn so red when he informs 
you that he considers greatcoats unhealthy, and 
never carries an umbrella on principle. It is 
easy enough to say that poverty is no crime. 
No ; if it were men wouldn't be ashamed of it. 
It is a blunder though, and is punished as such. 
A poor man is despised the whole world over ; 
despised as much by a Christian as by a lord, as 
much by a demagogue as by a footman, and 
not all the copy-book maxims ever set for ink- 
stained youth will make him respected. Ap- 
pearances are everything, so far as human 
opinion goes, and the man who will walk down 
Picadilly arm in arm with the most notorious 
scamp in London, provided he is a well-dressed 
one, will slink up a back street to say a couple 
of words to a seedy-looking gentleman. And 
the seedy-looking gentleman knows this — no 
one better — and will go a mile round to avoid 
meeting an acquaintance. Those that knew 
him in his prosperity need never trouble them- 
selves to look the other wav. He is a thousand 



1 6 On Being Hard Up. 

times more anxious that they should not see 
him than they can be; and as to their assist- 
ance, there is nothing he dreads more than the 
offer of it. All he wants is to be forgotten ; 
and in this respect he is generally fortunate 
enough to get what he wants. 

One becomes used to being hard up, like one 
becomes used to everything else, by the help 
of that wonderful old homoeopathic doctor, 
Time. You can tell at a glance the difference 
between the old hand and the novice ; between 
the case-hardened man who has been iised to 
shift and struggle for years, and the poor devil 
of a beginner, striving to hide his misery, and 
in a constant agony of fear lest he should be 
found out. Nothing shows this difference more 
clearly than the way in which each will pawn 
his watch. As the poet says somewhere : 
''True ease in pawning comes from art, not 
chance." The one goes into his ''Uncle's" 
with as much composure as he would into his 
tailor's — very likely with more. The assistant 
is even civil and attends to him at once, to the 
great indignation of the lady in the next box, 
who, however, sarcastically observes that she 



On Being Hard Up. 1 7 

don't mind being kept waiting *'if it is a 
reg'lar customer." Why, from the pleasant 
and business-like manner in which the trans- 
action is carried out, it might be a large 
purchase in the Three per Cents. Yet what a 
piece of work a man makes of his first '* pop." 
A boy popping his first question is confidence 
itself compared with him. He hangs about 
outside the shop, until he has succeeded in 
attracting the attention of all the loafers in the 
neighbourhood, and has aroused strong sus- 
picions in the mind of the policeman on the 
beat. At last, after a careful examination of 
the contents of the windows, made for the 
purpose of impressing the by-standers with the 
notion that he is going in to purchase a 
diamond bracelet or some such trifle, he enters, 
trying to do so with a careless swagger, and 
giving himself really the air of a member of 
the swell mob. When inside, he speaks in so 
low a voice as to be perfectly inaudible, and 
has to say it all over again. When, in the 
course of his rambling conversation about a 
"friend " of his, the word "lend" is reached, 
he is promptly told to go up the court on the 
2 



1 8 On Being Hard Up. 

right, and take the first door round the corner. 
He comes out of the shop with a face that you 
could easily light a cigarette at, and firmly 
under the impression that the whole population 
of the district is watching him. When he does 
get to the right place he has forgotten his 
name and address, and is in a general con- 
dition of hopeless imbecility. Asked in a 
severe tone how he came by ''this," he stam- 
mers and contradicts himself, and it is only a 
miracle if he does not confess to having stolen 
it that very day. He is thereupon informed 
that they don't want anything to do with his 
sort, and that he had better get out of this as 
quickly as possible, which he does, recollecting 
nothing more until he finds himself three miles 
off, without the slightest knowledge how he got 
there. 

By the way, how awkward it is, though, 
having to depend on public-houses and churches 
for the time. The former are generally too fast 
and the latter too slow. Besides which, your 
efforts to get a glimpse of the public-house 
clock from the outside, are attended with great 
difficulties. If you gently push the swing door 



On Being Hard Up. 



19 



ajar and peer in, you draw upon yourself the 
contemptuous looks of the barmaid, who at 
once puts you down in the same category with 
area sneaks and cadgers. You also create a 
certain amount of agitation among the married 
portion of the customers. You don't see the 
clock, because it is behind the door ; and, in 
trying to withdraw quietly, you jamb your head. 
The only other method is to jump up and 
down outside the window. After this latter 
proceeding, however, if you do not bring out 
a banjo and commence to sing, the youthful 
inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who have 
gathered round in expectation, become disap- 
pointed. 

I should like to know, too, by what mys- 
terious law of nature it is that, before you have 
left your watch ''to be repaired " half-an-hour, 
some one is sure to stop you in the street and 
conspicuously ask you the time. Nobody even 
feels the slightest curiosity on the subject when 
you've got it on. 

Dear old ladies and gentlemen, who know 
nothing about being hard up — and may they 
never, bless their grey old heads — look upon 



«^ 



20 On Being Hard Up. 

the pawnshop as the last stage of degradation ; 
but those who know it better (and my readers 
have, no doubt, noticed this themselves), are 
often surprised, like the little boy who dreamed 
he went to Heaven, at meeting so many people 
there that they never expected to see. For 
my part, I think it a much more independent 
course than borrowing from friends, and I 
always try to impress this upon those of my 
acquaintance who incline towards '^wanting a 
couple of pounds till the day after to-morrow." 
But they won't all see it. One of them once 
remarked that he objected to the principle of 
the thing. I fancy if he had said it was the 
interest that he objected to he would have been 
nearer the truth : twenty-five per cent, cer- 
tainly does come heavy. 

There are degrees in being hard up. We 
are all hard up, more or less — most of us more. 
Some are hard up for a thousand pounds; 
some for a shilling. Just at this moment I am 
hard up myself for a fiver. I only want it for 
a day or two. I should be certain of paying it 
back within a week at the outside, and if any 
lady or gentleman among my readers would 



On Being Hard Up. 2 1 

kindly lend it me, I should be very much 
obliged indeed. They could sent it to me, 
under cover to Mr. Henry Altemus, only, in 
such case, please let the envelope be carefully 
sealed. I would give you my I. O. U. as 
security. 



ON BEING IN THE BLUES. 



T CAN enjoy feeling melancholy, and there is 
-■■ a good deal of satisfaction about being 
thoroughly miserable; but nobody likes a fit 
of the blues. Nevertheless, everybody has 
them ; notwithstanding which, nobody can tell 
why. There is no accounting for them. You 
are just as likely to have one on the day after 
you have come into a large fortune, as on the 
day after you have left your new silk umbrella 
in the train. Its effect upon you is somewhat 
similar to what would probably be produced 
by a combined attack of toothache, indiges- 
tion, and cold in the head. You become 
stupid, restless, and irritable ; rude to strangers, 
and dangerous towards your friends ; clumsy, 
maudlin, and quarrelsome ; a nuisance to your- 
self, and everybody about you. 

While it is on, you can do nothing and 
think of nothing, though feeling at the time 
bound to do something. You can't sit still, so 

22 



On Being in the Blues. 23 

put on your hat and go for a walk : but before 
you get to the corner of the street you wish 
you hadn't come out, and you turn back. 
You open a book and try to read, but you find 
Shakespeare trite and commonplace, Dickens 
is dull and prosy, Thackeray a bore, and 
Carlyle too sentimental. You throw the book 
aside, and call the author names. Then you 
"shoo" the cat out of the room, and kick the 
door to after her. You think you will write 
your letters, but after sticking at ^^ Dearest 
Auntie, — I find I have five minutes to spare, 
and so hasten to write to you, ' ' for a quarter of 
an hour, without being able to think of another 
sentence, you tumble the paper into the desk, 
fling the wet pen down upon the table cloth, 
and start up with the resolution of going to 
see the Thompsons. While pulling on your 
gloves, however, it occurs to you that the 
Thompsons are idiots; that they never have 
supper ; and that you will be expected to jump 
the baby. You curse the Thompsons, and 
decide not to go. 

By this time you feel completely crushed. 
You bury your face in your hands, and think 



24 On Being in the Blues. 

you would like to die and go to heaven. You 

picture to yourself your own sick-bed, with all 

your friends and relations standing round you 

weeping. You bless them all, especially the 

young and pretty ones. They will value you 

when you are gone, so you say to yourself, and ^ 

learn too late what they have lost ; and you 

bitterly contrast their presumed regard for you 

then with their decided want of veneration now. 

These reflections make you feel a little more 
cheerful, but only for a brief period; for the 
next moment you think what a fool you must 
be to imagine for an instant that anybody 
would be sorry at anything that might happen 
to you. Who would care two straws (whatever 
precise amount of care two straws may repre- 
sent) whether you were blown up, or hung up, 
or married, or drowned. Nobody cares for 
you. You never have been properly appre- 
ciated, never met with your due deserts in any 
one particular. You review the whole of your 
past life, and it is painfully apparent that you | 

have been ill-used from your cradle, J 

Half an hour's indulgence in these con- § 

siderations works you up into a state of savage 



On Being in the Blues. 25 

fury against everybody and everything, espe- 
cially yourself, whom anatomical reasons alone 
prevent your kicking. Bed-time at last comes, 
to save ;^ou from doing something rash, and 
you spring upstairs, throw off your clothes, 
leaving them strewn all over the room, blow 
out the candle, and jump into bed as if you 
had backed yourself for a heavy wager to do 
the whole thing against time. There, you toss 
and tumble about for a couple of hours or so, 
varying the monotony by occasionally jerking 
the clothes off, and getting out and putting 
them on again. At length you drop into an 
uneasy and fitful slumber, have bad dreams, 
and wake up late the next morning. 

At least, this is all we poor single men can 
do under the circumstances. Married men 
bully their wives, grumble at the dinner, and 
insist on the children's going to bed. All of 
which, creating, as it does, a good deal of dis- 
turbance in the house, must be a great relief to 
the feelings of a man in the blues, rows being 
the only form of amusement in which he can 
take any interest. 

The symptoms of the infirmity are much the 



26 On Being in the Blues, 

same in every case, but the affliction itself is 
variously termed. The poet says that **a 
feeling of sadness comes o'er him." 'Arry 
refers to the heavings of his wayward* heart by 
confiding to Jimee that he has "got the 
blooming hump." Your sister doesn't know 
what is the matter with her to-night. She feels 
out of sorts altogether, and hopes nothing is 
going to happen. The everyday- young-man 
is "so awfully glad to meet you, old fellow," 
for he does. " feel so jolly miserable, this even- 
ing." As for myself, I generally say that " I 
have a strange, unsettled feeling to-night," 
and "think I'll go out." 

By the way, it never does come except in the 
evening. In the sun-time, when the world is 
bounding forward full of life, we cannot stay to 
sigh and sulk. The roar of the working day 
drowns the voices of the elfin sprites that are 
ever singing their low-toned miserere in our 
ears. In the day we are angry, disappointed, 
or indignant, but never " in the blues," and 
never melancholy. When things go wrong at 
lo o'clock in the morning, we — or rather you 
— swear and knock the furniture about; but 



On Being in the Blues. 2 7 

if the misfortune comes at 10 p.m., we read 
poetry, or sit in the dark, and think what a 
hollow world this is. 

But, as a rule, it is not trouble that makes us 
melancholy. The actuality is too stern a thing 
for sentiment. We linger to weep over a 
picture, but from the original we should 
quickly turn our eyes away. There is no 
pathos in real misery : no luxury in real grief. 
We do not toy with sharp swords, nor hug a 
gnawing fox to our breasts for choice. When 
a man or woman loves to brood over a sorrow 
and takes care to keep it green in their 
memory, you may be sure it is no longer a 
pain to them. However they may have suf- 
fered from it at first, the recollection has 
become by then a pleasure. Many dear old 
ladies, who daily look at tiny shoes, lying in 
lavender-scented drawers, and weep as they 
think of the tiny feet whose toddling march is 
done ; and sweet-faced young ones, who place 
each night beneath their pillow some lock that 
once curled on a boyish head that the salt 
waves have kissed to death, will call me a 
nasty cynical brute, and say I'm talking non- 



28 On Being in the Blues. 



sense ; but I believe, nevertheless, that if they 
will ask themselves truthfully whether they find 
it unpleasant to dwell thus on their sorrow, 
they will be compelled to answer *'No." 
Tears are as sweet as laughter to some natures. 
The proverbial Englishman, we know from old 
chronicler Froissart, takes his pleasures sadly, 
and the Englishwoman goes a step further, and 
takes her pleasures in sadness itself. 

I am not sneering. I would not for a mo- 
ment sneer at anything that helps to keep 
hearts tender in this hard old world. We men 
are cold and common-sensed enough for all ; 
we would not have women the same. No, no, 
ladies dear, be always sentimental and soft- 
hearted, as you are — be the soothing butter to 
our coarse dry bread. Besides, sentiment is to 
women what fun is to us. They do not care 
for our humour, surely it would be unfair to 
deny them their grief. And who shall say 
that their mode of enjoyment is not as sensible 
as ours ? Why assume that a doubled-up body, 
a contorted, purple face, and a gaping mouth, 
emitting a series of ear-splitting shrieks, point 
to a state of more intelligent happiness than a 




f 



On Being in the Blues. 29 

pensive face, reposing upon a little white hand, 
and a pair of gentle tear-dimmed eyes, looking 
back through Time's dark avenue upon a 
fading past ? 

I am glad when I see Regret walked with as 
a friend — glad because I know the saltness has 
been washed from out the tears, and that the 
sting must have been plucked from the beauti- 
ful face of Sorrow e'er we dare press her pale 
lips to ours. Time has laid his healing hand 
upon the wound, when we can look back upon 
the pain we once fainted under, and no bitter- 
ness or despair rises in our hearts. The burden 
is no longer heavy, when we have for our past 
troubles only the same sweet mingling of pleas- 
ure and pity that we feel when old knight- 
hearted Colonel Newcome answers *'adsum" to 
the great roll-call, or when Tom and Maggie 
Tulliver, clasping hands through the mists that 
have divided them, go down, locked in each 
other's arms, beneath the swollen waters of the 
Floss. 

Talking of poor Tom and Maggie Tulliver 
brings to my mind a saying of George Eliot's in 
connection with this subject of melancholy. 



30 On Being in the Blues. 

She speaks somewhere of the ' 'sadness of a sum- 
mer's evening." How wonderfully true — like 
everything that came from that wonderful pen 
— the observation is ! Who has not felt the 
sorrowful enchantment of those lingering sun- 
sets? The world belongs to Melancholy then, 
a thoughtful, deep-eyed maiden who loves not 
the glare of day. It is not till ''light thickens, 
and the crow wings to the rocky wood," that 
she steals forth from her groves. Her palace is 
in twilight-land. It is there she meets us. At 
her shadowy gate she takes our hand in hers, 
and walks beside us through her mystic realm. 
We see no form, but seem to hear the rustling 
of her wings. 

Even in the toiling hum-drum city, her spirit 
comes to us. There is a sombre presence in 
each long, dull street; and the dark river 
creeps ghost-like, under the black arches, as if 
bearing some hidden secret beneath its muddy 
waves. 

In the silent country, when the trees and 
hedges loom dim and blurred against the ris- 
ing night, and the bat's wing flutters in our 
face, and the landrail's cry sounds drearily 



On Being in the Blues. 31 

across the fields, the spell sinks deeper still 
into our hearts. We seem in that hour to be 
standing by some unseen death-bed, and in 
the swaying of the elms we hear the sigh of the 
dying day. 

A solemn sadness reigns. A great peace is 
around us. In its light, our cares of the work- 
ing day grow small and trivial, and bread and 
cheese — aye, and even kisses — do not seem the 
only things worth striving for. Thoughts we 
cannot speak but only listen to flood in upon 
us, and, standing in the stillness under earth's 
dark'ning dome, we feel that we are greater 
than our petty lives. Hung round with those 
dusky curtains, the world is no longer a mere 
dingy workshop, but a stately temple wherein 
man may worship, and where, at times, in the 
dimness, his groping hands touch God's. 



ON VANITY AND VANITIES. 

A LL is vanity, and everybody's vain. Wo- 
•^^^ men are terribly vain. So are men — 
more so, if possible. So are children, particu- 
larly children. One of them, at this very 
moment, is hammering upon my legs. She 
wants to know what I think of her new shoes. 
Candidly I don't think much of them. They 
lack symmetry and curve, and possess an inde- 
scribable appearance of lumpiness (I believe, 
too, they've put them on the wrong feet). But 
I don't say this. It is not criticism, but flattery 
that she wants ; and I gush over them with what 
I feel to myself to be degrading effusiveness. 
Nothing else would satisfy this self-opinionated 
cherub. I tried the conscientious friend dodge 
with her on one occasion, but it was not a suc- 
cess. She had requested my judgment upon 
her general conduct and behavior, the exact 
case submitted being, ''Wot oo tink of me? 
Oo peased wi' me?" and 1 had thought it a 

32 



On Vatiity and Vanities. 33 

good opportunity to make a few salutary re- 
marks upon her late moral career, and said, 
* ' No, I am not pleased with you. ' ' I recalled to 
her mind the events of that very morning, and I 
put it to her how she, as a Christian child, could 
expect a wise and good uncle to be satisfied 
with the carryings on of an infant who that very 
day had roused the whole house at 5 a.m. ; had 
upset a water jug, and tumbled down stairs after 
it at 7 ; had endeavoured to put the cat in the 
bath at 8; and sat on her father's hat at 9.35. 

What did she do ? Was she grateful to me 
for my plain speaking? Did she ponder upon 
my words, and determine to profit by them, 
and to lead, from that hour, a better and a 
nobler life ? 

No ! she howled. 

That done, she became abusive. She said — 

''Oo naughty — 00 naughty, bad unkie — 00 
bad man — me tell MAR." 

And she did, too. 

Since then, when my views have been called 
for, I have kept my real sentiments more to 
myself like, preferring to express unbounded 
admiration of this young person's actions, irre- 

3 



34 On Vanity and Vanities. 

spective of their actual merits. And she nods 
her head approvingly, and trots off to advertise 
my opinion to the rest of the household. She 
appears to employ it as a sort of testimonial for 
mercenary purposes, for I subsequently hear dis- 
tant sounds of ''Unkie says me dood dirl — ^me 
dot to have two bikkies."^ 

There she goes, now, gazing rapturously at 
her own toes, and murmuring '^pittie" — two- 
foot-ten of conceit and vanity ; to say nothing 
of other wickednesses. 

They are all alike. I remember sitting in a 
garden one sunny afternoon in the suburbs of 
London. Suddenly, I heard a shrill, treble 
voice calling from a top story window to some 
unseen being, presumably in one of the other 
gardens, ''Gamma, me dood boy, me wery 
dood boy. Gamma; me dot on Bob's knickie- 
bockies. ' ' 

Why even animals are vain. I sav/ a great 
Newfoundland dog, the other day, sitting in 
front of a mirror at the entrance to a shop in 
Regent's Circus, and examining himself with 

*Early English for biscuits. 



On Vanity and Vanities. 35 

an amount of smug satisfaction that I have 
never seen equalled elsewhere, outside a vestry 
meeting. 

I was at a farmhouse once, when some high 
holiday was being celebrated. I don't remem- 
ber what the occasion was, but it was something 
festive, a May-day or Quarter-day, or some- 
thing of that sort, and they put a garland of 
flowers round the head of one of the cows. 
Well, that absurd quadruped went about all day 
as perky as a school-girl in a new frock ; and, 
when they took the wreath off, she became quite 
sulky, and they had to put it on again before 
she would stand still to be milked. This is not 
a Percy anecdote. It is plain, sober truth. 

As for cats, they nearly equal human beings 
for vanity. I have known a cat get up and 
walk out of the room, on a remark derogatory 
to her species being made by a visitor, while a 
neatly turned compliment will set them purring 
for an hour. 

I do like cats. They are so unconsciously 
amusing. There is such a comic dignity about 
them, such an ''How dare you!" *' Go away, 
don't touch me" sort of air. Now there is 



36 On Vanity and Vanities. 

nothing haughty about a dog. They are, 
"Hail, fellow, well met" with every Tom, 
Dick, or Harry that they come across. When 
I meet a dog of my acquaintance, I slap his 
head, call him opprobrious epithets, and roll 
him over on his back ; and there he lies, gaping 
at me, and doesn't mind it a bit. 

Fancy carrying on like that with a cat! 
Why, she would never speak to you again as 
long as you lived. No, when you want to win 
the approbation of a cat you must mind what 
you are about, and work your way carefully. 
If you don't know the cat, you had best begin 
by saying, '*Poor pussy." After which, add, 
"did 'ums," in a tone of soothing sympathy. 
You don't know what you mean, any more than 
the cat does, but the sentiment seems to imply 
a proper spirit on your part, and generally 
touches her feelings to such an extent that, if 
you are of good manners and passable appear- 
ance, she will stick her back up and rub her 
nose against you. Matters having reached this 
stage, you may venture to chuck her under the 
chin, and tickle the side of her head, and the 
intelligent creature will then stick her claws 



On Vanity and Vanities. 37 

into your legs ; and all is friendship and affec- 
tion, as so sweetly expressed in the beautiful 
lines — 

I love little Pussy, her coat is so warni, 

And if I don't tease her, she'll do me no harm ; 

So I'll stroke her, and pat her, and feed her with food. 

And Pussy will love me because I am good. 

The last two lines of the stanza give us a 
pretty true insight into pussy's notions of 
human goodness. It is evident that in her 
opinion goodness consists of stroking her, and 
patting her, and feeding her with food. I fear 
this narrow-minded view of virtue, though, is 
not confined to pussies. We are all inclined 
to adopt a similar standard of merit in our esti- 
mate of other people. A good man is a man 
who is good to us, and a bad man is a man who 
doesn't do what we want him to. The truth 
is, we each of us have an inborn conviction 
that the whole world, with everybody and 
everything in it, was created as a sort of 
necessary appendage to ourselves. Our fellow 
men and women were made to admire us, and 
to minister to our various requirements. You 
and 1, dear reader, are each the centre of the 



38 On Vanity and Vanities. 

universe in our respective opinions. You, as 
I understand it, were brought into being by a 
considerate Providence in order that you 
might read and pay me for what I write ; while 
I, in your opinion, am an article sent into the 
world to write something for you to read. 
The stars — as we term the myriad other 
worlds that are rushing down beside us through 
the eternal silence — were put into the heavens 
to make the sky look interesting for us at 
night. And the moon, with its dark mysteries 
and ever hidden face, is an arrangement for us 
to flirt under. 

I fear we are most of us like Mrs. Poyser's 
bantam cock, who fancied the sun got up 
every morning to hear him crow. *' 'Tis 
vanity that makes the world go round." I 
don't believe any man evey existed without 
vanity, and, if he did, he would be an ex- 
tremely uncomfortable person to have anything 
to do with. He would, of course, be a very 
good man, and we should respect him very 
much. He would be a very admirable man — a 
man to be put under a glass case, and shown 
around as a specimen — a man to be stuck upon 



On Vanity and Vanities, 39 

a pedestal, and copied-, like a school exercise — 
a man to be reverenced, but not a man to be 
loved, not a human brother whose hand we 
should care to grip. Angels may be very ex- 
cellent sort of folk in their way, but we, poor 
mortals, in our present state, would probably 
find them precious slow company. Even mere 
good people are rather depressing. It is in 
our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that 
we touch one another, and find sympathy. 
We differ widely enough in our nobler 
qualities. It is in our follies that we are at 
one. Some of us are pious, some of us are 
generous. Some few of us are honest, com- 
paratively speaking; and some, fewer still, 
may possibly be truthful. But in vanity and 
kindred weakness we can all join hands. 
Vanity is one of those touches of Nature that 
makes the whole world kin. From the Indian 
hunter, proud of his belt of scalps, to the 
European general, swelling beneath his row of 
stars and medals ; from the Chinee, gleeful at 
the length of his pigtail, to the ''professional 
beauty," suffering tortures in order that her 
waist may resemble a peg-top ; from draggle- 



40 On Vanity and Vanities. 

tailed little Polly Stiggins, strutting through 
Seven Dials with a tattered parasol over her 
head, to the princess, sweeping through a 
drawing-room, with a train of four yards long ; 
from 'Arry, winning by vulgar chaff the loud 
laughter of his pals, to the statesman, whose 
ears are tickled by the cheers that greet his 
high-sounding periods ; from the dark-skinned 
African, bartering his rare oils and ivory for a 
few glass beads to hang about his neck, to the 
Christain maiden, selling her white body for a 
score of tiny stones and an empty title to tack 
before her name — all march, and fight, and 
bleed, and die beneath its tawdry flag. 

Ay, ay, vanity is truly the motive-power that 
moves Humanity, and it is flattery that greases 
the wheels. If you want to win aff"ection and 
respect in this world, you must flatter people. 
Flatter high and low, and rich and poor, and 
silly and wise. You will get on famously. 
Praise this man's virtues and that man's vices. 
Compliment everybody upon everything, and 
especially upon what they haven't got. 
Admire guys for their beauty, fools for their 
wit, and boors for their breeding. Your dis- 



On Vanity and Vanities. 41 

cernment and intelligence will be extolled to 
the skies. 

Every one can be got over by flattery. The 
belted earl — "belted earl" is the correct 
phrase, I believe. I don't know what it 
means, unless it be an earl that wears a belt in- 
stead of braces. Some men do. I don't like 
it myself. You have to keep the thing so 
tight, for it to be of any use, and that is un- 
comfortable. Anyhow, whatever particular 
kind of an earl a belted earl may be, he is, I 
assert, get-overable by flattery ; just as every 
other human being is, from a duchess to a 
cat's-meat man, from a ploughboy to a poet — 
and the poet far easier than the ploughboy, for 
butter sinks better into wheaten bread than 
into oaten cakes. 

As for love, flattery is its very life blood. 
Fill a person with love for themselves, and 
what runs over will be your share, says a 
certain witty and truthful Frenchman, whose 
name I can't for the life of me remember. 
(Confound it, I never can remember names 
when I want to ). Tell a girl she is an 
angel ; only more angelic than an angel ; 



42 On Vanity and Vanities. 

that she is a goddess, only more graceful, 
queenly, and heavenly than the average god- 
dess; that she is more fairy-like than Titania, 
more beautiful than Venus, more enchanting 
than Parthenope ; more adorable, lovely, and 
radiant, in short, than any other woman that 
ever did live, does live or could live, and you 
will make a very favorable impression upon her 
trusting little heart. Sweet innocent ! she will 
believe every word you say. It is so easy to 
deceive a woman — in this way. 

Dear little souls, they hate flattery, so they 
tell you; and, when you say, "Ah, darling, it 
isn't flattery in your case, it's plain, sober 
truth ; you really are, without exaggeration, 
the most beautiful, the most good, the most 
charming, the most divine, the most perfect 
human creature that ever trod this earth," 
they will smile a quiet, approving smile, and, 
leaning against your manly shoulder, murmur 
that you are a dear good fellow after all. 

By Jove, fancy a man trying to make love 
on strictly truthful principles, determining 
never to utter a word of mere compliment or 
hyperbole, but to scrupulously confine himself 



On Vanity and Vanities. 43 

to exact fact ! Fancy his gazing rapturously 
into his mistress' eyes, and whispering softly 
to her that she wasn't, on the whole, bad 
looking, as girls went ! Fancy his holding up 
her little hand, and assuring her that it was 
of a light drab colour, shot with red ; and 
telling her, as he pressed her to his heart, that 
her nose, for a turned-up one, seemed rather 
pretty ; and that her eyes appeared to him, as 
far as he could judge, to be quite up to the 
average standard of such things ! 

A nice chance he would stand against the 
man who would tell her that her face was like 
a fresh blush rose, that her hair was a wander- 
ing sunbeam imprisoned by her smiles, and her 
eyes like two evening stars. 

There are various ways of flattering, and, of 
course, you must adapt your style to your sub- 
ject. Some people like it laid on with a 
trowel, and this requires very little art. With 
sensible persons, however, it needs to be done 
very delicately, and more by suggestion than 
actual words. A good many like it wrapped 
up in the form of an insult, as — '' You are a 
perfect fool, you are. You would give your 



44 On Vanity and Vanities. 

last sixpence to the first hungry-looking beggar 
you met;" while others will swallow it only 
when administered through the medium of a 
third person, so that if C wishes to get at an A 
of this sort, he must confide to A's particular 
friend B that he thinks A a splendid fellow, 
and beg him, B, not to mention it, especially 
to A. Be careful that B is a reliable man, 
though, otherwise he won't. 

Those fine, sturdy John Bulls, who *' hate 
flattery, sir," ''Never let anybody get over 
me by flattery," &c., &c., are very simply 
managed. Flatter them enough upon their 
absence of vanity, and you can do what you 
like with them. 

After all, vanity is as much a virtue as a vice. 
It is easy to recite copy-book maxims against 
its sinfulness, but it is a passion that can move 
us to good as well as to evil. Ambition is 
only vanity ennobled. We want to win praise 
and admiration — or Fame as we prefer to name 
it — and so we write great books, and paint 
grand pictures, and sing sweet songs ; and 
toil with willing hands in study, loom, and 
laboratory. 



On Vanity and Vanities. 45 

We wish to become rich men, not in order 
to enjoy ease and comfort — all that any one 
man can taste of those may be purchased any- 
where for two hundred pounds per annum — 
but that our houses may be bigger and more 
gaudily furnished than our neighbours' ; that 
our horses and servants may be more numer- 
ous ; that we may dress our wives and daughters 
in absurd, but expensive clothes ; and that we 
may give costly dinners of which we ourselves 
individually do not eat a shilling's worth. 
And to do this, we aid the world's work with 
clear and busy brain, spreading commerce 
among its peoples, carrying civilisation to its 
remotest corners. 

Do not let us abuse vanity, therefore. 
Rather let us use it. Honour itself is but the 
highest form of vanity. The instinct is not 
confined solely to Beau Brummels and Dolly 
Vardens. There is the vanity of the peacock, 
and the vanity of the eagle. Snobs are vain. 
But so, too, are heroes. Come, oh ! my young 
brother bucks, let us be vain together. Let us 
join hands, and help each other to increase our 
vanity. Let us be vain, not of our trousers 



46 



On Vanity and Vanities. 



and hair, but of brave hearts and working 
hands, of truth, of purity, of nobility. Let us 
be too vain to stoop to aught that is mean or 
base, too vain for petty selfishness and little- 
minded envy, too vain to say an unkind word 
or do an unkind act. Let us be vain of being 
single hearted, upright gentlemen in the midst 
of a world of knaves. Let us pride ourselves 
upon thinking high thoughts achieving great 
deeds, living good lives. 






ON GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

"VTOT exactly the sort of thing for an idle 
"*■ ^ fellow to think about, is it ? But out- 
siders, you know often see most of the game; 
and sitting in my arbour by the wayside, 
smoking my hookah of contentment, and eat- 
ing the sweet lotus-leaves of indolence, I can 
look out musingly upon the whirling throng 
that rolls and tumbles past me on the great 
high road of life. 

Never-ending is the wild procession. Day 
and night you can hear the quick tramp of the 
myriad feet — some running, some walking, 
some halting and lame ; but all hastening, all 
eager in the feverish race, all straining life and 
limb and heart and soul to reach the ever- 
receding horizon of success. 

Mark them as they surge along — men and 
women, old and young, gentle and simple, fair 
and foul, rich and poor, merry and sad — all 
hurrying, bustling, scrambling. The strong 

47 



48 On Getting on in the World. 

pushing aside the weak, the cunning creeping 
past the foolish ; those behind elbowing those 
before ; those in front kicking, as they run, at 
those behind. Look close, and see the flitting 
show. Here is an old man panting for breath ; 
and there a timid maiden, driven by a hard 
and sharp-faced matron ; here is a studious 
youth, reading '' How to get on in the World," 
and letting everybody pass him as he stumbles 
along with his eyes on his book; here is a 
bored-looking man, with a fashionably-dressed 
woman jogging his elbow; here a boy, gazing 
wistfully back at the sunny village that he 
never again will see ; here with a firm and easy 
step, strides a broad-shouldered man ; and 
here, with a stealthy tread, a thin-faced, stoop- 
ing fellow dodges and shuffles upon his way; 
here with gaze fixed always on the ground, an 
artful rogue carefully works his way from side 
to side of the road, and thinks he is going for- 
ward ; and here a youth with a noble face 
stands, hesitating as he looks from the distant 
goal to the mud beneath his feet. 

And now into sight comes a fair girl, with 
her dainty face growing more wrinkled at 



On Getting on in the World. 49 

every step ; and now a careworn man, and 
now a hopeful lad. 

A motley throng — a motley throng ! Prince 
and beggar, sinner and saint, butcher and baker 
and candlestick-maker, tinkers and tailors, and 
ploughboys and sailors — all jostling along to- 
gether. Here the counsel in his wig and gown, 
and here the old Jew clothesman under his dingy 
tiara; here the soldier in his scarlet, and here 
the undertaker's mute in streaming hat-band 
and worn cotton gloves ; here the musty scholar, 
fumbling his faded leaves, and here the scented 
actor, dangling his showy seals. Here the glib 
politician, crying his legislative panaceas ; and 
here the peripatetic Cheap-Jack, holding aloft 
his quack cures for human ills. Here the sleek 
capitalist, and there the sinewy labourer ; here 
the man of science, and here the shoe-black j 
here the poet, and here the water-rate col- 
lector; here the cabinet minister, and there 
the ballet-dancer. Here a red-nosed publican, 
shouting the praises of his vats; and here a 
temperance lecturer at fifty pounds a night ; 
here a judge, and there a swindler; here a 
priest, and there a gambler. Here a jewelled 

4 



50 On Getting on in the World. 

duchess, smiling and gracious ; here a thin 
lodging-house keeper, irritable with cooking ; 
and here a wabbling, strutting thing, tawdry 
in paint and finery. 

Cheek by cheek, they struggle onward. 
Screaming, cursing, and praying, laughing, 
singing, and moaning, they rush past side by 
side. Their speed never slackens, the race 
never ends. There is no wayside rest for them, 
no halt by cooling fountains, no pause beneath 
green shades. On, on, on — on through the 
heat and the crowd and the dust — on, or they 
will be trampled down, and lost — on, with 
throbbing brain and tottering limbs — on, till 
the heart grows sick, and the eyes grow blurred, 
and a gurgling groan tells those behind they 
may close up another space. 

And yet, in spite of the killing pace and the 
stony track, who, but the sluggard or the dolt, 
can hold aloof from the course ? Who — like 
the belated traveller that stands watching fairy 
revels till he snatches and drains the goblin 
cup, and springs into the whirling circle — can 
view the mad tumult, and not be drawn into 
its midst ? Not I, for one. I confess to the 



On Getting on in the World. 5 1 

wayside arbour, the pipe of contentment, and 
the lotus-leaves being altogether unsuitable 
metaphors. They sounded very nice and 
philosophical, but I'm afraid I am not the sort 
of person to sit in arbours, smoking pipes, 
when there is any fun going on outside. I 
think I more resemble the Irishman, who, see- 
ing a crowd collecting, sent his little girl out 
to ask if there was going to be a row — '' 'Cos, 
if so, father would like to be in it." 

I love the fierce strife. I like to watch it. 
I like to hear of people getting on in it — bat- 
tling their way bravely and fairly — that is, not 
slipping through by luck or trickery. It stirs 
one's old Saxon fighting blood, like the tales 
of *' knights who fought 'gainst fearful odds" 
thrilled us in our schoolboy days. 

And fighting the battle of life is fighting 
against fearful odds, too. There are giants 
and dragons in this nineteenth century, and 
the golden casket that they guard is not so 
easy to win as it appears in the story-books. 
There, Algernon takes one long, last look at 
the ancestral hall, dashes the tear-drop from 
his eye, and goes off — to return in three years' 



5 2 On Getting on in the World. 

time, rolling in riches. The authors do not 
tell us '' how it's done," which is a pity, for it 
would surely prove exciting. 

But then not one novelist in a thousand ever 
does tell us the real story of their hero. They 
linger for a dozen pages over a tea-party, but 
sum up a life's history with *Mie had become 
one of our merchant princess," or *'he was 
now a great artist, with the world at his feet." 
Why, there is more real life in one of Gilbert's 
patter-songs than in half the biographical 
novels ever written. He relates to us all the 
various steps by which his office-boy rose to be 
the ''ruler of the Queen's navee," and ex- 
plains to us how the briefless barrister man- 
aged to become a great and good judge, 
'' ready to try this breach of promise of mar- 
riage." It is in the petty details, not in the 
great results, that the interest of existence lies. 

What we really want is a novel showing us 
all the hidden under-current of an ambitious 
man's career — his struggles, and failures, and 
hopes, his disappointments, and victories. It 
would be an immense success. I am sure the 
wooing of Fortune would prove quite as in- 



On Getting on in the World. 53 

teresting tale as the wooing of any flesh and 
blood maiden, though, by-the-way, it would 
read extremely similar; for Fortune is, indeed, 
as the ancients painted her, very like a woman 
— not quite so unreasonable and incon- 
sistent, but nearly so — and the pursuit is much 
the same in one case as in the other. Ben 
Jonson's couplet — 

"Court a mistress, she denies you; 
Let her alone, she will court you" — 

puts them both in a nutshell. A woman never 
thoroughly cares for her lover until he has 
ceased to care for her ; and it is not until you 
have snapped your fingers in Fortune's face, 
and turned on your heel, that she begins to 
smile upon you. 

But, by that time, you do not much care 
whether she smiles or frowns. Why could she 
not have smiled when her smiles would have 
thrilled you with ecstasy? Everything comes 
too late in this world. 

Good people say that it is quite right and 
proper that it should be so, and that it proves 
ambition is wicked. 



54 On Getting on in the World. 

Bosh ! Good people are altogether wrong. 
(They always are, in my opinion. We never 
agree on any single point). What would the 
world do without ambitious people, I should 
like to know? Why, it would be as flabby as 
a Norfolk dumpling. Ambitious people are 
the leaven which rises it into wholesome bread. 
Without ambitious people, the world would 
never get up. They are busybodies who are 
about early in the morning, hammering, shout- 
ing and rattling the fire-irons, and rendering it 
generally impossible for the rest of the house 
to remain in bed. 

Wrong to be ambitious, forsooth ! The men 
wrong, who, with bent back and sweating 
brow, cut the smooth road over which Human- 
ity marches forward from generation to gener- 
ation ! Men wrong, for using the talents that 
their Master has entrusted to them — for toiling 
while others play ! 

Of course, they are seeking their reward. 
Man is not given that god-like unselfishness 
that thinks only of others' good. But in 
working for themselves they are working for 
us all. We are so bound together that no man 



On Getting on in the World. 55 

can labour for himself alone. Each blow he 
strikes in his own behalf helps to mould the 
Universe. The stream, in struggling onward, 
turns the mill-wheel ; the coral insect, fashion- 
ing its tiny cell, joins continents to one 
another; and the ambitious man, building a 
pedestal for himself, leaves a monument to 
posterity. Alexander and Caesar fought for 
their own ends, but, in doing so, they put a 
belt of civilisation half round the earth. 
Stephenson, to win a fortune, invented the 
steam-engine ; and Shakespeare wTOte his plays 
in order to keep a comfortable home for Mrs. 
Shakespeare and the little Shakespeares. 

Contented, unambitious people are all very 
well in their way. They form a neat, useful 
background for great portraits to be painted 
against ; and they make a respectable, if not 
particularly intelligent, audience for the active 
spirits of the age to play before. I have not a 
word to say against contented people so long 
as they keep quiet. But do not, for goodness' 
sake, let them go strutting about, as they are 
so fond of doing, crying out that they are the 
true models for the whole species. Why, they 



56 On Getting on in the World. 

are the deadheads, the drones in the great 
hive, the street crowds that lounge about, 
gaping at those who are working. 

And let them not imagine either — as they 
are also fond of doing — that they are very 
wise and philosophical, and that it is a very 
artful thing to be contented. It may be true 
that '* a contented mind is happy any where j" 
but so is a Jerusalem pony, and the conse- 
quence is that both are put anywhere and are 
treated anyhow. ^'Oh, you need not bother 
about him,'*'' is what is said ; '^ he is very con- 
tented as he is, and it would be a pity to 
disturb him." And so your contented party 
is passed over, and the discontented man gets 
his place. 

If you are foolish enough to be contented, 
don't show it, but grumble with the rest; and 
if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal. 
Because if you don't you won't get any. In 
this world, it is necessary to adopt the prin- 
ciple pursued by the plaintiff in an action for 
damages, and to demand ten times more than 
you are ready to accept. If you can feel satis- 
fied with a hundred, begin by insisting on a 



On Gettifig on in the World. 5 7 

thousand; if you start by suggesting a hundred, 
you will only.get ten. 

It was by not following this simple plan that 
poor Jean Jacques Rousseau came to such grief. 
He fixed the summit of his earthly bliss at 
living in an orchard with an amiable woman 
and a cow, and he never attained even that. 
He did get as far as the orchard, but the 
woman was not amiable, and she brought her 
mother with her, and there was no cow. Now, 
if he had made up his mind for a large country 
estate, a houseful of angels, and a cattle show, 
he might have lived to possess his kitchen 
garden and one head of live stock, and even 
possibly have come across that rara-avis — a 
really amiable woman. 

What a terrible dull affair, too, life must be 
for contented people ! How heavy the time 
must hang upon their hands, and what on 
earth do they occupy their thoughts with, sup- 
posing that they have any ? Reading the paper 
and smoking seems to be the intellectual food 
of the majority of them, to which the more 
energetic add playing the flute and talking 
about the affairs of the next-door neighbour. 



/ , 



58 On Getting on in the World. 

They never know the excitement of expecta- 
tion, nor the stern delight of accomplished 
effort, such as stir the pulse of the man who 
has objects, and hopes, and plans. To the 
ambitious man, life is a brilliant game — a game 
that calls forth all his tact and energy, and 
nerve — a game to be won, in the long run, by 
the quick eye and the steady hand, and yet 
having sufficient chance about its working out 
to give it all the glorious zest of uncertainty. 
He exults in it, as the strong swimmer in the 
heaving billows, as the athlete in the wrestle, 
the soldier in the battle. 

And if he be defeated, he wins the grim joy 
of fighting; if he lose the race, he, at least, 
has had a run. Better to work and fail, than 
to sleep one's life away. 

So, walk up, walk up, walk up. Walk up, 
ladies and gentlemen ! walk up, boys and girls ! 
Show your skill and try your strength ; brave 
your luck, and prove your pluck. Walk up ! 
The show is never closed, and the game is 
always going. The only genuine sport in all 
the fair, gentlemen — highly respectable, and 
strictly moral — patronised by the nobility, 



On Getting ofi in the World. 



59 



clergy, and gentry. Established in the year 
one, gentleman, and been flourishing ever 
since ! — walk up. Walk up, ladies and gentle- 
men, and take a hand. There are prizes for 
all, and all can play. There is gold for the 
man and fame for the boy j rank for the 
maiden and pleasure for the fool. So walk up, 
ladies and gentlemen, walk up ! — all prizes, 
and no blanks; for some few win, and as to 
the rest, why — 

"The rapture of pursuing 
Is the prize the vanquished gain." 



ON BEING IDLE. 

"\TOW this is a subject on which I flatter 
^ ^ myself I really am mi fait. The gentle- 
man who, when-'I was young, bathed me at 
wisdom's font for nine guineas a term — no 
extras — used to say he never knew a boy who 
could do less work in more time ; and I 
remember my poor grandmother once inci- 
dentally observing in the course of an instruc- 
tion upon the use of the prayer-book, that it 
was highly improbable that I should ever do 
much that I ought not to do, but, that she felt 
convinced beyond a doubt that 1 should leave 
undone pretty well everything that I ought 
to do. 

I am afraid I have somewhat belied half the 
dear old lady's prophecy. Heaven help me ! 
I have done a good many things that I ought 
not to have done, in spite of my laziness. But 
I have fully confirmed the accuracy of her 
judgment so far as neglecting much that I 

60 



On Being Idle. 6i 



It *■ 



I ought not to have neglected is concerned. 

Idling always has been my strong point. I 

£ take no credit to myself in the matter — it is a 

gift. Few possess it. There are plenty of lazy 
people and plenty of slow-coaches, but a 
genuine idler is a rarity. He is not a man 
who slouches about with his hands in his 
pockets. On the contrary, his most startling 
characteristic is that he is always intensely 
busy. 

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly 
unless one has plenty of work to do. There is 
no fun in doing nothing when you have 
nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an 
occupation then, and a most exhausting one. 
Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be 
stolen. 

Many years ago, when I was a young man, I 
was taken very ill — I never could see myself 
that much was the matter with me, except that 
I had a beastly cold. But I suppose it was 
something very serious, for the doctor said that 
I ought to have come to him., a" month before, 
and that if (whatever it was) had gone on for 
another week he would not have answered for 



62 On Being Idle. 



the consequences. It is an extraordinary 
thing, but I never knew a doctor called into 
any case yet, but what it transpired that 
another day's delay would have rendered cure 
hopeless. Our medical guide, philosopher, 
and friend is like the hero in a melodrama, he 
always comes upon the scene just, and only 
just, in the nick of time. It is Providence, 
that is what it is. 

Well, as I was saying, I was very ill, and 
was ordered to Buxton for a month, with 
strict injunctions to do nothing whatever all 
the while that I was there. **Rest is what you 
require," said the doctor, '^ perfect rest." 

It seemed a delightful prospect. *'This 
man evidently understands my complaint," 
said I, and I pictured to myself a glorious 
time — a four weeks' dolce far nie?ite with a 
dash of illness in it. Not too much illness, 
but just illness enough — ^just sufficient to give 
it the flavour of suffering, and make it poetical. 
I should get up late, sip chocolate, and have 
my breakfast in slippers and dressing-gown. 
I should lie out in the garden in a hammock, 
and read sentimental novels with a melancholy 



On Being Idle. 63 



ending, until the book would fall from my 
listless hand, and I should recline there, 
dreamily gazing into the deep blue of the 
firmament, watching the fleecy clouds, floating 
like white-sailed ships, across its depths, and 
listening to the joyous song of the birds, and 
the low rustling of the trees. Or, when I 
became too weak to go out of doors, I should 
sit, propped up with pillows, at the open 
window of the ground floor front, and look 
wasted and interesting, so that all the pretty 
girls would sigh as they passed by. 

And, twice a day, I should go down in a 
Bath chair to the Colonnade, to drink the 
waters. Oh, those waters ! I knew nothing 
about them then, and was rather taken with 
the idea. '^Drinking the waters" sounded 
fashionable and Queen Anneified, and I 
thought I should like them. But, ugh ! after 
the first three or four mornings ! Sam Weller's 
description of them, as *' having a taste of 
warm flat-irons," conveys only a faint idea 
of their hideous nauseousness. If anything 
could make a sick man get well quickly, it 
would be the knowledge that he must drink a 



64 On Being Idle. 



glassful of them every day until he was 
recovered. I drank them neat for six consecu- 
tive days, and they nearly killed me ; but, after 
then, I adopted the plan of taking a stiff glass 
of brandy and water immediately on the top 
of them, and found much relief thereby. I 
have been informed since, by various eminent 
medical gentlemen, that the alcohol must have 
entirely counteracted the effects of the chaly- 
beate properties contained in the water. I am 
glad I was lucky enough to hit upon the right 
thing. 

But '' drinking the waters " was only a small 
portion of the torture I experienced during 
that memorable month, a month which was, 
without exception, the most miserable I have 
ever spent. During the best part of it, I re- 
ligiously followed the doctor's mandate, and 
did nothing whatever, except moon about 
the house -and garden, and go out for two 
hours a day in a Bath chair. That did break 
the monotony to a certain extent. There is 
more excitement about Bath-chairing — es- 
pecially if you are not used to the exhilarating 
exercise — than might appear to the casual ob- 



On Being Idle. 65 

server. A sense of danger, such as a mere 
outsider might not understand, is ever present 
to the mind of the occupant. He feels con- 
vinced every minute that the whole concern is 
going over, a conviction which becomes es- 
pecially lively whenever a ditch or a stretch of 
newly macadamised road comes in sight. 
Every vehicle that passes he expects is going to 
run into him ; and he never finds himself as- 
cending or descending a hill, without im- 
mediately beginning to speculate upon his 
chances, supposing — as seems extremely proba- 
ble — that the weak knee'd controller of his 
destiny should let go. 

But even this diversion failed to enliven after 
a while, and the ennui became perfectly un- 
bearable. I felt my mind giving way under it. 
It is not a strong mind, and I thought it would 
be unwise to tax it too far. So somewhere 
about the twentieth morning, I got up early, 
had a good breakfast, and walked straight off 
to Hayfield at the foot of the Kinder Scout — 
a pleasant, busy, little town, reached through 
\ a. lovely valley, and with two sweetly pretty 

I women in it. At least they were sweetly pretty 

5 



66 On Being Idle. 



then; one passed me on the bridge, and, I 
think, smiled ; and the other was standing at 
an open door, making an unremunerative in- 
vestment of kisses upon a red-faced baby. But 
it is years ago, and I daresay they have both 
grown stout and snappish since that time. 
Coming back, I saw an old man breaking 
stones, and it roused such strong longing in 
me to use my arms, that I offered him a drink 
to let me take his place. He was a kindly old 
man, and he humoured me. I went for those 
stones with the accumulated energy of three 
weeks, and did more work in half-an-hour than 
he had done all day. But it did not make 
him jealous. 

Having taken the plunge, I went further and 
further into dissipation, going out for a long 
walk every morning, and listening to the band 
in the Pavilion every evening. But the days 
still passed slowly notwithstanding, and I was 
heartily glad when the last one came, and I 
was being whirled away from gouty, consump- 
tive Buxton to London with its stern work and 
life. I looked out of the carriage as we rushed 
through Hendon in the evening. The lurid 



On Being Idle. 6 7 



glare overhanging the mighty city seemed to 
warm my heart, and, when later on, my cab 
rattled out of St. Pancras' station, the old 
familiar roar that came swelling up around me 
sounded the sweetest music I had heard for 
many a long day. 

I certainly did not enjoy that month's 
idling. I like idling when I ought not to be 
idling ; not when it is the only thing I have to 
do. That is my pig-headed nature. The 
time when I like best to stand with my back to 
the fire, calculating how much I owe, is when 
my desk is heaped highest with letters that 
must be answered by the next post. When I 
like to dawdle longest over my dinner, is when 
I have a heavy evening's work before me. 
And if, for some urgent reason, I ought to be 
up particulary early in the morning, it is then, 
more than at any other time, that I love to lie 
an extra half-hour in bed. 

Ah ! how delicious it is to turn over and go 
to sleep again: ^^just for five minutes." Is 
there any humaji being, I wonder, besides the 
hero of a Sunday-school ''tale for boys," who 
ever gets up willingly ? There are some men 



I 

68 On Being Idle. \ 

to whom getting up at the proper time is an 
utter impossibility. If eight o'clock happens 
to be the time that they should turn out, then 
they lie till half-past. If circumstances change, 
and half-past eight becomes early enough for 
them, then it is nine before they can rise ; 
they are like the statesman of whom it was said 
that he was always punctually half an hour late. 
They try all manner of schemes. They buy 
alarm clocks (artful contrivances that go off at 
the wrong time, and alarm the wrong people). 
They tell Sarah Jane to knock at the door and 
call them, and Sarah Jane does knock at the 
door, and does call them, and they grunt back 
"awri," and then go comfortably to sleep 
again. I k{iow one man who would actually 
get out, and have a cold bath ; and even that 
was of no use, for, afterwards, he would jump 
into bed again to warm himself. 

I think myself that I could keep out of bed 
all right, if I once got out. It is the wrench- 
ing away of the hand from the pillow that I 
find so hard, and no amount of over-night de- 
termination makes it easier. I say to myself, 
after having wasted the whole evening, ''Well, 



I 



On Being Idle. 69 

I won't do any more work to-night; I'll get 
up early to-morrow morning;" and I am 
thoroughly resolved to do so — then. In the 
morning, however, I feel less enthusiastic 
about the idea, and reflect that \k would have 
been much better if I had stopped up last 
night. And then there is the trouble of dress- 
ing, and the more one thinks about that, the 
more one wants to put it off. 

It is a strange thing this bed, this mimic 
grave, where we stretch our tired limbs, and 
sink away so quietly into the silence and rest. 
"Oh bed, oh bed, delicious bed, that heaven 
on earth to the weary head," as sang poor 
Hood, you are a kind old nurse to us fretful 
boys and girls. Clever and foolish, naughty 
and good, you take us all in your motherly lap, 
and hush our wayward crying. The strong 
man full of care — the sick man full of pain — 
the little maiden, sobbing for her faithless 
lover — like children, we lay our aching heads 
on your white bosom, and you gently soothe us 
off to by-by. 

Our trouble is sore indeed, when you turn 
away, and will not comfort us. How long the 



70 On Being Idle. 



dawn seems coming, when we cannot sleep ! 
Oh ! those hideous nights, when we toss and 
turn in fever and pain, when we lie, like living 
men among the dead, staring out into the dark 
hours that dIKft so slowly between us and the 
light. And oh ! those still more hideous 
nights, when we sit by another in pain, when 
the low fire startles us every now and then with 
a falling cinder, and the tick of the clock 
seems a hammer, beating out the life that we 
are watching. 

But enough of beds and bed-rooms. I have 
kept to them too long, even for an idle fellow. 
Let us come out, and have a smoke. That 
wastes time just as well, and does not look so 
bad. Tobacco has been a blessing to us idlers. 
What the civil service clerks before Sir Walter's 
time found to occupy their minds with, it is 
hard to imagine. I attribute the quarrelsome 
nature of the Middle Ages young men entirely 
to the want of the soothing weed. They had 
no work to do^ and could not smoke, and the 
consequence was they were for ever fighting 
and rowing. If, by any extraordinary chance, 
there was no war going, then they got up a 



On Being Idle. 7 1 



deadly family feud with the next-door neigh- 
bour, and if, in spite of this, they still had a 
few spare moments on their hands, they occu- 
pied them with discussions as to whose sweet- 
heart was the best looking, the arguments 
employed on both sides being battle-axes, 
clubs, &c. Questions of taste were soon de- 
cided in those days. When a twelfth century 
youth fell in love, he did not take three paces 
backwards, gaze into her eyes, and tell her she 
was too beautiful to live. He said he would 
step outside and see about it. And if, when 
he got out, he met a man and broke his head 
— the other man's head, I mean — then that 
proved that his — the first fellow's girl — was a 
pretty girl. But if the other fellow broke his 
head — not his own, you know, but the other 
fellow's — the other fellow to the second fel- 
low, that is, because of course the other fellow 
would only be the other fellow to him, not the 
first fellow, who — well, if he broke his head, 
then his girl — not the other fellow's but the 
fellow who was the — Look here, if A broke 
B's head, then A's girl was a pretty girl ; but 
if B broke A's head, then A's girl wasn't a 



72 On Being Idle. 



pretty girl, but B's girl was. That was their 
method of conducting art criticism. 

Now-a-days we light a pipe, and let the girls 
fight it out amongst themselves. 

They do it very well. They are getting to 
do all our work. They are doctors, and bar- 
risters, and artists. They manage theatres, 
and promote swindles, and edit newspapers. 
I am looking forward to the time when we men 
shall have nothing to do but lie in bed till 
twelve, read two novels a day, have nice little 
five o'clock teas all to ourselves, and tax our 
brains with nothing more trying than discus- 
sions upon the latest patterns in trousers, and 
arguments as to what Mr. Jones's coat was 
made of and whether it fitted him. It is a 
glorious prospect — for idle fellows. 



ON BEING IN LOVE. 



'V/'OU'VE been in love, of course ! If not 
■*• you've got it to come. Love is like 
the measles; we all have to go through it. 
Also like the measles, we take it only once. 
One never need be afraid of catching it a 
second time. The man who has had it can go 
into the most dangerous places, and play the 
most fool-hardy tricks with perfect safety. He 
can picnic in shady woods, ramble through 
leafy aisles, and linger on mossy seats to watch 
the sunset. He fears a quiet country house no 
more than he would his own club. He can 
join a family party to go down the Rhine. 
He can, to see the last of a friend, venture 
into the very jaws of the marriage ceremony 
itself. He can keep his head through the 
whirl of the ravishing waltz, and rest after- 
wards in a dark conservatory, catching noth- 
ing more lasting than a cold. He can brave a 
moonlight walk adown sweet-scented lanes, 

73 



74 On Being in Love. 

or a twilight pull aAiong the sombre rushes. 
He can get over a stile without danger, scram- 
ble through a tangled hedge without being 
caught, come down a slippery path without 
falling. He can look into sunny eyes, and 
not be dazzled. He listens to the siren voices, 
yet sails on with unveered helm. He clasps 
white hands in his, but no electric ''Lulu" 
like force holds him bound in their dainty 
pressure. 

No, we never sicken with love twice. 
Cupid spends no second arrow on the same 
heart. Love's handmaids are our life-long 
friends. Respect, and Admiration, and Af- 
fection, our doors may always be left open for, 
but their great celestial master, in his royal 
progress, pays but one visit, and departs. We 
like, we cherish, we are very, very fond of — 
but we never love again. A man's heart is a fire- flB 

work that once in its time flashes heavenward. 
Meteor-like, it blazes for a moment, and : 

lights with its glory the whole world beneath. 
Then the night of our sordid commonplace 
life closes in around it, and the burnt-out case, 
falling back to earth, lies useless and uncared 



On Being in Love. 75 

for, slowly smouldering into ashes. Once, 
breaking loose from our prison bonds, we dare, 
as mighty old Prometheus dared, to scale the 
Olympian mount, and snatch from Phoebus' 
chariot the fire of the gods. Happy those 
who, hastening down again e'er it dies out, 
can kindle their earthly altars at its flame. 
Love is too pure a light to burn long among 
the noisome gases that we breathe, but before 
it is choked out we may use it as a torch to 
ignite the cosy fire of affection. 

And, after all, the warming glow is more 
suited to our cold little back parlour of a world 
than is the burning spirit, love. Love should 
be the vestal fire of some mighty temple — 
some vast dim fane whose organ music is the 
rolling of the spheres. Affection will burn 
cheerily when the white flames of love is flick- 
ered out. Affection is a fire that can be fed 
from day to day, and be piled up even higher 
as the winter years draw nigh. Old men and 
women can sit by it with their thin hands 
clasped, the little children can nestle down in 
front, the friend and neighbour has his wel- 
come corner by its side, and even shaggy Fido 



76 On Being in Love. 

and sleek Titty can toast their noses at the 
bars. 

Let us heap the coals of kindness upon that 
fire. Throw on your pleasant words, your 
gentle pressures of the hand, your thoughtful 
and unselfish deeds. Fan it with good 
humour, patience, and forbearance. You can 
let the wind blow and the rain fall unheeded 
then, for your hearth will be warm and bright, 
and the faces around it will make sunshine in 
spite of the clouds without. 

I am afraid, dear Edwin and Angelina, you 
expect too much from love. You think there 
is enough of your little hearts to feed this 
fierce, devouring passion for all your long 
lives. Ah, young folk ! don't rely too much 
upon that unsteady flicker. It will dwindle 
and dwindle as the months roll on, and there 
is no replenishing the fuel. You will watch it 
die out in a;nger and disappointment. To 
each it will seem that it is the other who is 
growing colder. Edwin sees with bitterness 
that Angelina no longer runs to the gate to 
meet him, all smiles and blushes; and, when 
he has a cough now, she doesn't begin to cry, 



On Being in Love. 77 

and, putting her arms around his neck, say- 
that she cannot live without him. The most 
she will probably do is to suggest a lozenge, 
and even that in a tone implying that it is the 
noise more than anything else she is anxious to 
get rid of. 

Poor little Angelina, too, sheds silent tears, 
for Edwin has given up carrying her old 
handkerchief in the inside pocket of his waist- 
coat. 

Both are astonished at the falling off in the 
other one, but neither sees their own change. 
If they did, they would not suffer as they do. 
They would look for the cause in the right 
quarter — in the littleness of poor human 
nature — ^join hands over their common failing, 
and start building their houses anew on a more 
earthly and enduring foundation. But we are 
so blind to our own shortcomings, so wide 
awake to those of others. Everything that 
happens to us is always the other person's fault. 
Angelina would have gone on loving Edwin 
for ever and ever and ever, if only Edwin had 
not grown so strange and different. Edwin 
would have adored Angelina through eternitv, 



78 On Being in Love. 

if Angelina had only remained the same as 
when he first adored her. 

It is a cheerless hour for you both, when the 
lamp of love has gone out, and the fire of 
affection is not yet lit, and you have to grope 
about in the cold raw dawn of life to kindle it. 
God grant it catches light before the day is 
too far spent. Many sit shivering by the dead 
coals till night comes. 

But, there, of what use is it to preach? 
Who that feels the rush of young love through 
his veins can think it will ever flow feeble and 
slow ! To the boy of twenty, it seems impossible 
that he will not love as wildly at sixty as he 
does then. He cannot call to mind any mid- 
dle-aged or elderly gentleman of his acquain- 
tance who is known to exhibit symptoms of 
frantic attachment, but that does not interfere 
in his belief in himself. His love will never 
fail, whoever else's may. Nobody ever loved 
as he loves, and so, of course, the rest of the 
world's experience can be no guide in his case. 
Alas, alas ! e'er thirty, he has joined the ranks 
of the sneerers. It is not his fault. Our pas- 
sions, both the good and bad, cease with our 



I 

I 



On Being in Love. 79 

blushes. We do not hate, nor grieve, nor joy, 
nor despair in our thirties like we do in our 
teens. Disappointment does not suggest sui- 
cide, and we quaff success without intoxica- 
tion. 

We take all things in a minor key as we 
grow older. There are few majestic passages 
in the later acts of life's opera. Ambition 
takes a less ambitious aim. Honour becomes 
more reasonable, and conveniently adapts itself 
to circumstances. And love — love dies. '' Irre- 
verence for the dreams of youth ' ' soon creeps 
like a killing frost upon our hearts. The ten- 
der shoots and the expanding flowers are nipped 
and withered, and, of a vine that yearned to 
stretch its tendrils round the world, there is 
left but a sapless stump. 

My fair friends will deem all this rank heresy, 
I know. So far from a man's not loving after 
he has passed boyhood, it is not till there is a 
good deal of grey in his hair that they think 
his protestations at all worthy of attention, 
Young ladies take their notions of our sex 
from the novels written by their own, and com- 
pared with the monstrosities that masquerade 



8o On Being in Love. 

for men in the pages of that nightmare literature 
Pythagoras' s plucked bird and Frankenstein's 
demon were fair average specimens of hu- 
manity. 

In these so-called books, the chief lover, or 
Greek god, as he is admiringly referred to — 
by the way, they do not say which ^' Greek 
god" it is that the gentleman bears such a 
striking likeness to, it might be hump-backed 
Vulcan, or double-faced Janus, or even drivel- 
ling Silenus, the god of abstruse mysteries. 
He resembles the whole family of them, how- 
ever, in being a blackguard, and perhaps this 
is what is meant. To even the little manliness 
his classical prototypes possessed, though, he 
can lay no claim whatever, being a listless 
effeminate noodle, on the shady side of forty. 
But oh ! the depth and strength of this elderly 
party's emotion for some bread and butter 
school-girl ! Hide your heads, ye young Ro- 
meos, and Leanders, this blase old beau loves 
with an hysterical fervour that requires four 
adjectives to every noun to properly describe. 

It is well, dear ladies, for us old sinners, 
that you study only books. Did you read man- 



i 



On Being in Love, 8i 



kind, you would know that the lad's shy stam- 
mering tells a truer tale than our bold eloquence. 
A boy's love comes from a full heart ; a man's 
is more often the result of a full stomach. 
Indeed, a man's sluggish current may not be 
called love, compared with the rushing foun- 
tain that wells up, when a boy's heart is struck 
with the heavenly rod. If you would taste 
love, drink of the pure stream that youth pours 
out at your feet. Do not wait till it has 
become a muddy river before you stoop to 
catch its waves. 

Or is it that you like better its bitter flavour; 
that the clear, limpid water is insipid to your 
palate, and that the pollution of its after-course 
gives it a relish to your lips? Must we believe 
those who tell us that a hand foul with the filth 
of a shameful life is the only one a young girl 
cares to be caressed by ? 

That is the teaching that is bawled out day 
by day from between those yellow covers. Do 
they ever pause to think, I wonder, those 
Devil's Lady-Helps, what mischief they are 
doing, crawling about God's garden, and tell- 
ing childish Eves and silly Adams that sin is 
6 



82 On Being in Love. 

sweet, and that decency is ridiculous and vul- 
gar ? How many an innocent girl do they not 
degrade into an evil-minded woman ? To how 
many a weak lad do they not point out the 
dirty by-path as the shortest cut to a maiden's 
heart ? It is not as if they wrote of life as it 
really is. Speak truth and right will take care 
of itself. But their pictures are coarse daubs 
painted from sickly fancies of their own dis- 
eased imagination. 

We want to think of women, not — as their 
own sex would show them — as Lore-Leis luring 
us to destruction, but as good angels beckoning 
us upward. They have more power for good 
or evil than they dream of. It is just at the 
very age when a man's character is forming that 
he tumbles into love, and then the lass has the 
making or marring of him. Unconsciously, 
he moulds himself to what she would have him, 
good or bad. I am sorry to have to be ungal- 
lant enough to say that I do not think they 
always use their influence for the best. Too 
often the female world is bounded hard and 
fast within the limits of the commonplace, 
Their ideal hero is a prince of littleness, and 



On Being in Love. 83 

to become that many a powerful mind, enchan- 
ted by love, is *' lost to life and use, and name 
and fame." 

And yet, women, you could make us so much 
better, if you only would. It rests with you, 
more than with all the preachers, to roll this 
world a little nearer Heaven. Chivalry is not 
dead : it only sleeps for want of work to do. 
It is you who must wake it to noble deeds. 
You must be worthy of knightly worship. You 
must be higher than ourselves. It was for Una 
that the Red Cross Knight did war. For no 
painted, mincing, court dame could the dragon 
have been slain. Oh, ladies fair, be fair in 
mind and soul as well as face, so that brave 
knights may win glory in your service ! Oh, 
Woman, throw off your disguising cloaks of 
selfishness, effrontery, and affectation ! Stand 
forth once more a queen in your royal robe of 
simple purity. A thousand swords, now rust- 
ing in ignoble sloth, shall leap from their scab- 
bards to do battle for your honour against 
wrong. A thousand Sir Rolands shall lay 
lance in rest, and Fear, Avarice, Pleasure, and 
Ambition shall go down in the dust before 
your colours. 



84 On Being in Love. 

What noble deeds were we not ripe for in 
the days when we loved? What noble lives 
could we not have lived for her sake? Our 
love was a religion we could have died for. It 
was no mere human creature like ourselves that 
we adored. It was a queen 'that we paid 
homage to, a goddess that we worshipped. 

And how madly we did worship ! And how 
sweet it was to worship ! Ah, lad, cherish 
love's young dream while it lasts ! You will 
know, too soon, how truly little Tom Moore 
sang, when he said that there was nothing half 
so sweet in life. Even when it brings misery, 
it is a wild, romantic misery, all unlike the 
dull, worldly pain of after sorrows. When you 
have lost her — when the light is gone out from 
your life, and the world stretches before you a 
long, dark horror, even then a half enchant- 
ment mingles with your despair. 

And who would not risk its terrors to gain 
its raptures ? Ah, what raptures they were ! 
The mere recollection thrills you. How de- 
licious it was to tell her that you loved her, 
that you lived for her, that you would die for 
her ! How you did rave to be sure, what 



On Being in Love. 85 

floods of extravagant nonsense you poured 
forth, and oh, how cruel it was of her to pre- 
tend not to believe you ! In what awe you 
stood of her ! How miserable you were when 
)'0U had offended her? And yet, how pleasant 
to be bullied by her, and to sue for pardon 
without having the slightest notion of what 
your fault was ! How dark the world was 
when she snubbed you, as she often did, the 
little rogue, just to see you look wretched ; how 
sunny when she smiled ! How jealous you 
were of every one about her ! How you hated 
every man she shook hands with, every woman 
she kissed — the maid that did her hair, the boy 
that cleaned her shoes, the dog she nursed — 
though you had to be respectful to the last 
named ! How you looked forward to seeing 
her, how stupid you were when you did see 
her, staring at her without saying a word ! 
How impossible it was for you to go out at any 
time of the day or night without finding your- 
self eventually opposite her windows ! You 
hadn't pluck enough to go in, but you hung 
about the corner and gazed at the outside. Oh, 
if the house had only caught fire — it was in- 



86 On Being in Love. 



sured, so it wouldn't have mattered — and you 
could have rushed in and saved her at the risk 
of your life, and have been terribly burnt and 
injured ! Anything to save her. Even in 
little things that was so sweet. How you 
would watch her, spaniel-like, to anticipate her 
slightest wish ! How proud you were to do 
her bidding ! How delightful it was to be 
ordered about by her ! To devote your whole 
life to her, and to never think of yourself, 
seemed such a simple thing. You would go 
without a holiday to lay a humble offering at 
her shrine, and felt more than repaid if she 
only deigned to accept it. How precious to 
you was everything that she had hallowed by 
her touch — her little glove, the ribbon she had 
worn, the rose that had nestled in her hair, and 
whose withered leaves still mark the poems you 
never care to look at now. 

And oh, how beautiful she was, how won- 
drous beautiful ! It was as some angel entering 
the room, and all else became plain and earthly. 
She was too sacred to be touched. It seemed 
almost presumption to gaze at her. You would 
as soon have thought of kissing her as of sing- 



On Being in Love. 87 

ing comic songs in a cathedral. It was dese- 
cration enough to kneel, and timidly raise the 
gracious little hand to your lips. 

Ah, those foolish days, those foolish days, 
when we were unselfish, and pure-minded ; 
those foolish days, when our simple hearts were 
full of truth, and faith, and reverence ! Ah, 
those foolish days of noble longings and of 
noble strivings ! And oh, these wise clever 
days, when we know that money is the only 
prize worth striving for, when we believe in 
nothing else but meanness and lies, when we 
care for no living creature but ourselves ! 



ON THE WEATHER 

'TAKINGS do go so contrary like with me. 
^ I wanted to hit upon an especially novel 
out-of-the-way subject for one of these articles. 
" I will write one paper about something 
altogether new," I said to myself; *^ some- 
thing that nobody else has ever written or 
talked about before ; and then I can have it all 
my own way. ' ' And I went about for days, 
trying to think of something of this kind ; and 
I couldn't. And Mrs. Cutting, our Char- 
woman, came yesterday — I don't mind men- 
tioning her name, because I know she will not 
see this book. She would not look at such a 
frivolous publication. She never reads any- 
thing but the Bible and Lloyd^s Weekly News. 
All other literature she considers unnesessary 
and sinful. 

She said : '' Lor', sir, you do look worried." 

I said : '' Mrs. Cutting, I am trying to think 

of a subject, the discussion of which will come 

2>Z 



■SI 



On the Weather. 89 

upon the world in the nature of a startler — 
some subject upon which no previous human 
being has ever said a word — some subject that 
will attract by its novelty, invigorate by its 
surprising freshness." 

She laughed, and said I was a funny gentle- 
man. 

That's my luck again. When I make serious 
observations, people chuckle ; when I attempt 
a joke, nobody sees it. I had a beautiful one 
last week. I thought it so good, and I worked 
it up, and brought it in artfully at a dinner- 
party. I forget how exactly, but we had been 
talking about the attitude of Shakespeare 
towards the Reformation, and I said something, 
and immediately added, *'Ah^ that reminds 
me ; such a funny thing happened the other 
day in Whitechapel." ''Oh," said they; 
' ' what was that ? " ' 'Oh, ' twas av/fully funny, ' ' 
I replied, beginning to giggle myself; " It will 
make you roar; " and I told it them. 

There was a dead silence when I finished — 
it was one of those long jokes, too- — and then 
at last, somebody said : " And that was the 
joke?" 



90 On the Weather. 

I assured them that it was, and ihey were 
very polite, and took my word for it. All but 
one old gentleman, at the other end of the 
table, who wanted to know which was the joke 
— what he said to her or what she said to him ; 
and we argued it out. 

Some people are too much the other way. 
I knew a fellow once, whose natural tendency 
to laugh at everything was so strong that, if 
you wanted to talk seriously to him, you had 
to explain beforehand that what you were 
going to say would not be amusing. Unless 
you got him to clearly understand this, he 
would go off into fits of merriment over every 
word you uttered. 1 have known him, on 
being asked the time, stop short in the middle 
of the road, slap his leg, and burst into a roar 
of laughter. One never dared say anything 
really funny to that man. A good joke would 
have killed him on the spot. 

In the present instance, I vehemently re- 
pudiated the accusation of frivolity, and 
pressed Mrs. Cutting for practical ideas. She 
then became thoughful and hazarded ''sam- 
plers; " saying that she never heard them 



On the Weather. 91 

spoken much of now, but they used to be all 
the rage when she was a girl. 

I declined samplers, and begged her ^o think 
again. She pondered a long while, with the 
tea-tray in her hands, and at last suggested the 
weather, which she was sure had been most 
trying of late. 

And ever since that idiotic suggestion, I 
have been unable to get the weather out of my 
thoughts, or anything else in. 

It certainly is most wretched weatner. At 
all events, it is so now, at the time I am writ- 
ing, and, if it isn't particularly unpleasant 
when I come to be read, it soon will be. 

It always is wretched weather, according to 
us. The weather is like the Government, 
always in the wrong. In summer time we say 
it is stifling ; in winter that it is killing ; in 
spring and autumn we find fault with it for 
being neither one thing nor the other, and 
wish it would make up its mind. If it is fime, 
we say the country is being ruined for want of 
rain ; if it does rain, we pray for fine 
weather. If December passes without snow, 
we indignantly demand to know what has 



92 On the Weather. 

become of our good old-fashioned winters, and 
talk as if we had been cheated out of some- 
thing we had bought and paid for; and when 
it does snow, our language is a disgrace to a 
Christian nation. We shall never be content 
until each man makes his own weather, and 
keeps it to himself. 

If that cannot be arranged, we would rather 
do without it altogether. 

Yet I think it is only to us in cities that all 
weather is so unwelcome. In her own 
home, the country, Nature is sweet in all her 
moods. What can be more beautiful than the 
snow, falling big with mystery in silent soft- 
ness, decking the fields and trees with white as 
if for a fairy wedding ! And how delightful is 
a walk when the frozen ground rings beneath 
our swinging tread — when our blood tingles in 
the rare, keen air, and the sheep dog's distant 
bark and children's laughter peals faintly clear 
like Alpine bells across the open hills ! And 
then skating ! scudding with wings of steel 
across the swaying ice waking whirring music 
as we fly. And oh, how dainty is spring — 
Nature at sweet eighteen ! When the little, 



On the Weather. 93 

hopeful leaves peep out so fresh and green, so 
pure and bright, like young lives pushing shyly 
out into the bustling world ; when the fruit- 
tree blossoms, pink and white, like village 
maidens in their Sunday frocks, bide each 
white-washed cottage in a cloud of fragile 
splendour ; and the cuckoo's note upon the 
breeze is wafted through the woods ! And 
summer, with its deep, dark green, and drowsy 
hum — when the rain drops whisper solemn 
secrets to the listening leaves, and the twilight 
lingers in the lanes ! And autumn ! ah, how 
sadly fair, with its golden glow, and the dying 
grandeur of its tinted woods — its blood-red 
sunsets, and its ghostly evening mists, with its 
busy murmur of reapers, and its laden orchards, 
and the calling of the gleaners, and the 
festivals of praise ! 

The very rain, and sleet, and hail seem only 
Nature's useful servants, when found doing 
their simple duties in the country; and the 
East Wind himself is nothing worse than a 
boisterous friend, when we meet him between 
the hedgerows. 

But in the city, where the painted stucco 



94 On the Weather. 

blisters under the smoky sun, and the sooty 
rain brings slush and mud, and the snow lies 
piled in dirty heaps, and the chill blasts 
whistle dovA'n dingy streets, and shriek round 
flaring, gas-lit corners, no face of Nature 
charms us. Weather in towns is like a skylark 
in a counting house — out of place, and in the 
way. Towns ought to be covered in, warmed 
by hot water pipes, and lighted by electricity. 
The weather is a country lass, and does not ap- 
pear to advantage in town. We like well 
enough to flirt with her in the hay field, but 
she does not seem so fascinating when we meet 
her in Pall Mall. There is too much of her 
there. The frank free laugh and hearty voice, 
that sounded so pleasant in the dairy, jars 
against the artificiality of town-bred life, and 
her ways become exceedingly trying. 

Just lately she has been favouring us with 
almost incessant rain for about three weeks; 
and I am a demd, damp, moist, unpleasant 
body, as Mr. Mantalini puts it. 

Our next door neighbour comes out in the 
back garden every now and then, and says it's 
doing the country a world of good — not his 



On the Weather. 95 

coming out into the back garden, but the 
weather. He doesn't understand anything 
about it, but ever since he started a cucumber 
frame last summer, he has regarded himself in 
the light of an agriculturist, and talks in this 
absurd way with the idea of impressing the 
rest of the terrace with the notion that he is a 
retired farmer. I can only hope that, for this 
once, he is correct, and that the weather really 
is doing good to something, because it is doing 
me a considerable amount of damage. It is 
spoiling both my clothes and my temper. The 
latter I can afford, as I have a good supply of 
it, but it wounds me to the quick to see my 
dear old hats and trousers sinking, prematurely 
worn and aged beneath the cold world's blasts 
and snows. 

There is my new spring suit too. A beauti- 
ful suit it was, and now it is hanging up so 
bespattered with mud, I can't bear to look 
at it. 

That was Jim's fault, that was. I should 
never have gone out in it that night, if it had 
not been for him. I was just trying it on 
when became in. He threw up his arms with 



96 On the Weather, 

a wild yell, the moment he caught sight of it, 
and exclaimed that he had. '■'■ got 'em again ! " 

I said : ^' Does it fit all right behind ? ' ' 

" Spiffin, old man," he replied. And then 
he wanted to know if I was coming out. 

I said *'no," at first, but he overruled me. 
He said that a man with a suit like that had no 
right to stop indoors. "Every citizen," said 
he, '^owes a duty to the public. Each one 
should contribute to the general happiness, as 
far as lies in his power. Come out, and give 
the girls a treat. ' ' 

Jim is slangy. I don't know where he picks 
it up. It certainly is not from me. 

I said : " Do you think it will really please 
'em?" 

He said it would be like a day in the coun- 
try to them. 

That decided me. It was a lovely evening, 
and I went. 

When I got home, I undressed and rubbed 
myself down with whisky, put my feet 
in hot water, and a mustard plaster on my 
chest, had a basin of gruel and a glass of hot 
brandy and water, tallowed my nose, and 
went to bed. 



On the Weather. 97 



These prompt and vigorous measures, aided 
by a naturally strong constitution, were the 
means of preserving my life; but as for the 
suit ! Well, there, it isn't a suit \ its a splash 
board. 

And I did fancy that suit too. But that's 
just the way. I never do get particularly fond 
of anything in this world, but what something 
dreadful happens to it. I had a tame rat when 
I was a boy, and I loved that animal as only a 
boy would love an old water rat ; and, one 
day, it fell into a large dish of gooseberry-food 
that was standing to cool in the kitchen, and 
nobody knew what had become of the poor 
creature, until the second helping. 

I do hate wet weather, in town. At least, it 
is not so much the wet, as the mud, that I ob- 
ject to. Somehow or other, I seem to possess 
an irresistible alluring power over mud. I have 
only to show myself in the street on a muddy 
day to be half smothered by it. It all comes 
of being so attractive, as the old lady said 
when she was struck by lightning. Other 
people can go out on dirty days, and walk 
about for hours without getting a speck upon 

7 



98 On the Weather. 

themselves ; while, if I go across the road, 1 
come back a perfect disgrace to be seen (as, in 
my boyish days, my poor dear mother used 
often to tell me). If there were only one dab 
of mud to be found in the whole of London, I 
am convinced I should carry it off from all 
competitors. 

I wish I could return the affection, but I fear 
I never shall be able to. I have a horror of 
what they call the '* London particular." I 
feel miserable and muggy all through a dirty 
day, and it is quite a relief to pull one's clothes 
off and get into bed, out of the way of it all. 
Everything goes wrong in wet weather. I 
don't know how it is, but there always seem 
to me to be more people, and dogs, and per- 
ambulators, and cabs, and carts, about in wet 
weather, than at any other time, and they all 
get in your way more, and everybody is so dis- 
agreeable — except myself — and it does make 
me so wild. And then, too, somehow, I 
always find myself carrying more things in wet 
weather than in dry ; and, when you have a 
bag, and three parcels, and a newspaper ; and 
it suddenly comes on to rain, you can't open 
your umbrella. 



On the Weather. 99 

Which reminds me of another phase of the 
weather that I can't bear, and that is April 
weather (so-called, because it always comes in 
May). Poets think it very nice. As it does 
not know its own mind five minutes together, 
they liken it to a woman ; and it is supposed 
to be very charming on that account. I don't 
appreciate it, myself. Such lightning change 
business may be all very agreeable in a girl. 
It is no doubt highly delightful to have to do 
with a person who grins one moment about 
nothing at all, and snivels the next for precisely 
the same cause, and who then giggles, and then 
sulks, and who is rude, and affectionate, and 
bad-tempered, and jolly, and boisterous, and 
silent, and passionate, and cold, and stand- 
offish, and flopping, all in one minute (mind / 
don't say this. It is those poets. And they 
are supposed to be connoisseurs of this sort of 
thing) \ but in the weather, the disadvantages 
of the system are more apparent. A woman's 
tears do not make one wet, but the rain does ; 
and her coldness does not lay the foundations 
of asthma and rheumatism, as the east wind is 
apt to. I can prepare for, and put up with a 



loo On the Weather. 



regularly bad day, but these ha'porth of all sorts 
kind of days do not suit me. It aggravates 
me to see a bright blue sky above me, when I 
am walking along wet through ; and there is 
something so exasperating about the way the 
sun comes out, smiling after a drenching 
shower, and seems to say: ''Lord, love you, 
you don't mean to say you're wet ? Well, I 
am surprised. Why it was only my fun." 

They don't give you time to open or shut 
your umbrella in an English April, especially 
if it is an ''automaton" one — the umbrella I 
mean, not the April. 

I bought an "automaton" once in April, 
and I did have a time with it ! I wanted an 
umbrella, and I went into a shop in the Strand, 
and told them so, and they said — 

"Yessir; what sort of an umbrella would 
you like? " 

I said I should like one that would keep the 
rain off, and that would not allow itself to be 
left behind in a railway carriage. 

" Try an 'automaton,' " said the shopman. 

" What's an ' automaton ? ' " said I. 

" Oh, it's a beautiful arrangement," replied 



On the Weather. loi 

the man, with a touch of enthusiasm. "It 
opens and shuts itself." 

I bought one, and found that he was quite 
correct. It did open and shut itself. I had 
no control over it whatever. When it began 
to rain, which it did that season, every alter- 
nate five minutes, I used to try arid get the 
machine to open, but it would not budge; and 
then I used to stand and struggle with the 
wretched thing, and shake it, and swear at it, 
while the rain poured down in torrents. Then 
the moment the rain ceased, the absurb thing 
would go up suddenly with a jerk, and would 
not come down again ; and I had to walk 
about under a bright blue sky, with an umbrella 
over my head, wishing that it would come on 
to rain again, so that it might not seem that I 
was insane. 

When it did shut, it did so unexpectedly, 
and knocked one's hat off. 

I don't know why it should be so, but it is 
an undeniable fact that there is nothing makes 
a man look so supremely ridiculous as losing 
his hat. The feeling of helpless misery that 
shoots down one's back on suddenly becoming 



I02 



On the Weather. 



aware that one's head is bare is among the 
most bitter ills that the flesh is heir to. And 
then there is the wild chase after it, accom- 
panied by an excitable small dog, who thinks 
it is a game, and in the course of which you 
are certain to upset three or four innocent 
children — to say nothing of their mothers — 
butt a fat old gentleman on to the top of a 
perambulator, and cannon off a ladies' semi- 
nary into the arms of a wet sweep. After this, 
the idiotic hilarity of the spectators, and the 
disreputable appearance of the hat, when 
recovered, appear but of minor importance. 

Altogether, what between March winds, 
April showers, and the entire absence of May 
flowers, spring is not a success in cities. It is 
all very well in the country, as I have said, but 
in towns whose population is anything over ten 
thousand, it most certainly ought to be abol- 
ished. In the world's grim workshops, it is 
like the children — out of place. Neither show 
to advantage amidst the dust and din. It 
seems so sad to see the little dirt-grimed brats, 
trying to play in the noisy courts and muddy 
streets. Poor little uncared-for, unwanted hu- 



On the Weather. 103 

man atoms, they are not children. Children 
are bright-eyed, chubby, and shy. These are 
dingy, screeching elves, their tiny faces seared 
and withered, their baby laughter cracked and 
hoarse. 

The spring of life, and the spring of the 
year were alike meant to be cradled in the 
green lap of Nature. To us, in the town, 
spring brings but its cold winds and drizzling 
rains. We must seek it amongst the leafless 
woods, and the brambly lanes, on the healthy 
moors, and the great, still hills, if we want to 
feel its joyous breath, and hear its silent 
voices. There is a glorious freshness in the 
spring there. The scurrying clouds, the open 
bleakness, the rushing wind, and the clear 
bright air, thrill one with vague energies and 
hopes. Life, like the landscape around us, 
seems bigger, and wider, and freer — a rain- 
bow road, leading to unknown ends. Through 
the silvery rents that bar the sky, we seem to 
catch a glimpse of the great hope and grandeur 
that lies around this little throbbing world, and 
a breath of its scent is wafted us on the wings 
of the wild March wind. 



I04 



On the Weather, 



Strange thoughts we do not understand are 
stirring in our hearts. Voices are calling us 
to some great effort, to some mighty work. 
But we do not comprehend their meaning yet, 
and the hidden echoes within us that would 
reply are struggling, inarticulate, and dumb. 

We stretch our hands like children to the 
light, seeking to grasp we know not what. 
Our thoughts, like the boys' thoughts in the 
Danish song, are very long thoughts, and very 
vague ; we cannot see their end. 

It must be so. All thoughts that peer out- 
side this narrow world cannot be else than dim 
and shapeless. The thoughts that we can 
clearly grasp are very little thoughts — that two 
and two make four — that when we are hungry 
it is pleasant to eat — that honesty is the best 
policy ; all greater thoughts are undefined and 
vast to our poor childish brains. We see but 
dimly through the mists that roll around our 
time-girt isle of life, and only hear the distant 
surging of the great sea beyond. 



ON CATS AND DOGS. 

117 HAT I've suffered from them this morn- 
^ * ing no tongue can tell. It began with 
Gustavus Adolphus. Gustavus Adolphus (they 
call him "Gusty" downstairs for short) is a 
very good sort of a dog, when he is in the 
middle of a large field, or on a fairly extensive 
common, but I -won't have him in -doors. He 
means well, but this house is not his size. He 
stretches himself, and over, go two chairs and a 
what-not. He wags his tail, and the room 
looks as if a devastating army had marched 
through it. He breathes, and it puts the fire 
out. 

At dinner-time, he creeps in under the table, 
lies there for a while, and then gets up sud- 
denly; the first intimation we have of his 
movements being given by the table, which 
appears animated by a desire to turn somer- 
saults. We all clutch at it frantically, and 
endeavour to maintain it in a horizontal posi- 

105 



tion ; whereupon his struggles, he being under 
the impression that some wicked conspiracy is 
being hatched against him, become fearful, and 
the final picture presented is generally that of 
an overturned table and a smashed-up dinner, 
sandwiched between two sprawling layers of in- 
furiated men and women. 

He came in this morning in his usual style, 
which he appears to have founded on that of an 
American cyclone, and the first thing he did 
was to sweep my coffee cup off the table with 
his tail, sending the contents full into the 
middle of my waist-coat. 

I rose from my chair, hurriedly, and remark- 
ing, " ," approached him at 

a rapid rate. He preceded me in the direc- 
tion of the door. At the door he met Eliza, 
coming in with eggs. Eliza observed, *' Ugh ! " 
and sat down on the floor, the eggs took up 
different positions about the carpet, where they 
spread themselves out, and Gustavus Adolphus 
left the room. I called after him, strongly 
advising him to go straight downstairs, and not 
let me see him again for the next hour or so ; 
and he, seeming to agree with me, dodged the 



fi 



To6 On Cats and Dogs. ^ 
• 



« 

I 



On Cats and Dogs. 107 

coal-scoop, and went ; while I returned, dried 
myself, and finished breakfast. I made sure 
that he had gone into the yard, but when I 
looked into the passage ten minutes later, he 
was sitting at the top of the stairs. I ordered 
him down at once, but he only barked and 
jumped about, so I went to see what was the 
matter. 

It was Tittums. She was sitting on the top 
stair but one, and wouldn't let him pass. 

Tittums is our kitten. She is about the size 
of a penny roll. Her back was up, and she 
was swearing like a medical student. 

She does swear fearfully. I do a little that 
way myself sometimes, but I am a mere amateur 
compared with her. To tell you the truth — 
mind, this is strictly between ourselves, please ; 
I shouldn't like your wife to know I said it, 
the women folk don't understand these things; 
but between you and me, you know, I think it 
does a man good to swear. Swearing is the 
safety-valve through which the bad temper, that 
might otherwise do serious internal injury to 
his mental mechanism, escapes in harmless 
vapouring. When a man has said: ''Bless 



io8 On Cats and Dogs. 

you, my dear, sweet sir. What the sun, moon, 
and stars made you so caveless (if I may be 
permitted the expression) as to allow your light 
and delicate foot to descend upon my corn with 
so much force? Is it that you are physically 
incapable of comprehending the direction in 
which you are proceeding? you nice, clever 
young man — you? " or words to that effect, he 
feels better. Swearing has the same soothing 
effect upon our angry passions that smashing 
the furniture or slamming the doors is so well 
known to exercise ; added to which it is much 
cheaper. Swearing clears a man out like a 
pen'orth of gunpowder does the wash-house 
chimney. An occasional explosion is good for 
both. I rather distrust a man who never swears, 
or savagely kicks the footstool, or pokes the fire 
with unnecessary violence. Without some out- 
let, the anger caused by the ever-occurring 
troubles of life is apt to rankle and fester with- 
in. The petty annoyance, instead of being 
thrown from us, sits down beside us, and 
becomes a sorrow, and the little offense is 
brooded over till, in the hot-bed of rumina- 
tion, it grows into a great injury, under 



% 



On Cats and Dogs. 109 

whose poisonous shadow springs up hatred and 
revenge. 

Swearing relieves the feelings, that is what 
swearing does. I explained this to my aunt on 
one occasion, but it didn't answer with her. 
She said I had no business to have such feel- 
ings. 

That is what I told Tittums. I told her she 
ought to be ashamed of herself, brought up in 
a Christian family as she was, too. I don't so 
much mind hearing an old cat swear, but I 
can't bear to see a mere kitten give way to it. 
It seems sad in one so young. 

I put Tittums in my pocket, and returned 
to my desk. I forgot her for the moment, 
and when I looked I found that she had 
squirmed out of my pocket on to the table, and 
was trying to swallow the pen ; then she put 
her leg into the ink-pot and upset it ; then she 
licked her leg ; then she swore again — at me 
this time. 

I put her down on the floor, and there Tim 
began rowing with her. I do wish Tim would 
mind his own business. It was no concern of 
his what she had been doing. Besides, he is 



no On Cats and Dogs. 

not a saint himself. He is only a two-year-old 
fox terrier, and he interferes with everything, 
and gives himself the airs of a grey-headed 
Scotch collie. 

Tittum's mother has come in, and Tim has 
got his nose scratched, for which I am remark- 
ably glad. I have put them all three out in 
the passage, where they are fighting at the 
present moment. I'm in a mess with the ink, 
and in a thundering bad temper ; and if anything 
more in the cat or dog line comes fooling about 
me this morning, it had better bring its own 
funeral contractor with it. 

Yet, in general, I like cats and dogs very 
much indeed. What jolly chaps they are ! 
They are much superior to human beings as 
companions. They do not quarrel or argue 
with you. They never talk about themselves, 
but listen to you while you talk about yourself, 
and keep up an appearance of being interested 
in the conversation. They never make stupid 
remarks. They never observe to Miss Brown 
across a dinner-table, that they always under- 
stood she was very sweet on Mr. Jones (who 
has just married Miss Robinson). They never 



On Cats and Dogs. 



Ill 



mistake your wife's cousin for her husband, 
and fancy that you are the father-in-law. And 
they never ask a young author with fourteen 
tragedies, sixteen comedies, seven farces, and a 
couple of burlesques in his desk, why he doesn't 
write a play. 

They never say unkind things. They never 
tell us of our faults, ''merely for our own 
good." They do not, at inconvenient mo- 
ments, mildly remind us of our past follies and 
mistakes. They do not say, '' Oh yes, a lot of 
use you are, if you are ever really wanted" — 
sarcastic-like. They never inform us, like our 
inamoratas sometimes do, that we are not 
nearly so nice as we used to be. We are always 
the same to them. 

They are always glad to see us. They are 
with us in all our humours. They are merry 
when we are glad, sober when we feel solemn, 
sad when we are sorrowful. 

" Hulloa ! happy, and want a lark ! Rigut 
you are; I'm your man. Here I am, frisking 
round you, leaping, barking, pirouetting, ready 
for any amount of fun and mischief. Look at 
my eyes, if you doubt me. What shall it be ? 



112 On Cats and Dogs. 

A romp in the drawing-room, and never mind 
the furniture, or a scamper in the fresh, cool 
air, a scud across the fields, and down the hill, 
and won't we let old Gaffer Goggles' s geese 
know what time o'day it is, neither. Whoop ! 
come along.". 

Or you'd like to be quiet and think. Very 
well. Pussy can sit on the arm of the chair, 
and purr, and Montmorency will curl himself 
up on the rug, and blink at the fire, yet keep- 
ing one eye on you the while, in case you are 
seized with any sudden desire in the direction 
of rats. 

And when we bury our face in our hands 
and wish we had never been born, they don't 
sit up very straight, and observe that we have 
brought it all upon ourselves. They don't even 
hope it will be a warning to us. But they 
come up softly ; and shove their heads against 
us. If it is a cat, she stands on your shoulder, 
rumples your hair and says, '^ Lor', I am sorry 
for you, old man," as plain as words can speak ; 
and if it is a dog, he looks up at you with his 
big, true eyes, and says with them, ''Well, 
you've always got me, you know. We'll go 



On Cats and Dogs. 113 

through the world together, and always stand 
by each other, won't we? " 

He is very imprudent, a dog is. He never 
makes.it his business to inquire whether you 
are in the right or in the wrong, never bothers 
as to whether you are going up or down upon 
life's ladder, never asks whether you are rich 
or poor, silly or wise, sinner or saint. You 
are his pal. That is enough for him, and, 
come luck or misfortune, good repute or bad, 
honour or shame, he is going to stick to you, 
to comfort you, guard you, give his life for 
you, if need be — foolish, brainless, soulless 
dog! 

Ah ! old staunch friend, with your deep, 
clear eyes, and bright, quick glances, that take 
in all one has to say before one has time to 
speak it, do you know you are only an animal, 
and have no mind ? Do you know that dull- 
eyed, gin -sodden lout, leaning against the post 
out there, is immeasurably your intellectual • 
superior ? Do you know that every little- 
minded, selfish scoundrel, who lives by cheat- 
ing and tricking, who never did a gentle deed, 
or said a kind word, who never had a thought 
8 



114 On Cats and Dogs, 

that was not mean and low, or a desire that 
was not base, whose every action is a fraud, 
whose every utterance is a lie; do you know 
that these crawling skulks (and there are mil- 
lions of them in the world), do you know they 
are all as much superior to you as the sun is 
superior to rushlight, you honourable, brave- 
hearted, unselfish brute? They are men, you 
know, and men are the greatest, noblest, and 
wisest, and best Beings in the whole vast eter- 
nal Universe. Any man will tell you that. 

Yes, poor doggie, you are very stupid, very 
stupid indeed, compared with us clever men, 
who understand all about politics and philoso- 
phy, and who know everything in short, except 
what we are, and where we came from, and 
whither we are going, and what everything 
outside this tiny world and most things in 
it are. 

Never mind, though, pussy and doggie, we 
like you both all the better for your being 
stupid. We all like stupid things. Men can't 
bear clever woman, and a woman's ideal man 
is some one she can call a *' dear old stupid." 
It is so pleasant to come across people more 



I 



On Cats and Dogs. 115 

stupid than ourselves. We love them at once 
for being so. The world must be rather a rough 
place for clever people. Ordinary folk dislike 
them, and as for themselves, they hate each 
other most cordially. 

But there, the clever people are such a very 
insignificant minority that it really doesn't 
much matter if they are unhappy. So long as 
the foolish people can be made comfortable, 
the world, as a whole, will get on tolerably 
well. 

Cats have the credit of being more worldly 
wise than dogs — of looking more after their 
own interests, and being less blindly devoted 
to those of their friends. And we men and 
women are naturally shocked at such selfish- 
ness. Cats certainly do love a family that has 
a carpet in the kitchen more than a family that 
has not ; and if there are many children about, 
they prefer to spend their leisure time next 
door. But, taken altogether, cats are libelled. 
Make a friend of one, and she will stick to you 
through thick and thin. All the cats that I 
have had have been most firm comrades. I 
had a cat once that used to follow me about 



1 1 6 On Cats and Dogs. 



everywhere, until it even got quite embarrass- 
ing, and I had to beg hd?, as a personal favour, 
not to accompany me any further down the 
' High Street. She used to sit up for me when 
I was late home, and meet me in the passage. 
It made me feel quite like a married man, 
except that she never asked where I had been, 
and then didn't believe me when I told her. 

Another cat I had used to get drunk 
regularly every day. She would hang about 
for hours outside the cellar door for the pur- 
pose of sneaking in on the first opportunity, 
and lapping up the dr-ippings from the beer 
cask. I do not mention this habit of hers in 
praise of the species, but merely to show how 
almost human some of them are. If the trans- 
migration of souls is a fact, this animal was 
certainly qualifying most rapidly for a 
Christian, for her vanity was only second to 
her love of drink. AVhenever she caught a 
particularly big rat, she would bring it up into 
the room where we were all sitting, lay the 
corpse down in the midst of us, and wait to be 
praised. Lord ! how the girls used to scream. 
Poor rats ! They seem only to exist so that 



On Cats and Dogs. 117 

cats and dogs may gain credit for killing them, 
and chemists make a fortune by inventing 
specialities in poison for their destruction. 
And yet there is something fascinating about 
them. There is a weirdness and uncanniness 
attaching to them. They are so cunning and 
strong, so terrible in their numbers, so cruel, 
so secret. They swarm in deserted houses, 
where the broken casements hang rotting to 
the crumbling walls, and the doors swing creak- 
ing on their rusty hinges. They know the 
sinking ship, and leave her, no one knows how 
or whither. They whisper to each other in 
their hiding-places, how a doom will fall upon 
the hall, and the great name die forgotten. 
They do fearful deeds in ghastly charnel- 
houses. 

No tale of horror is complete without th© 
rats. In stories of ghosts and murderers, they 
scamper through the echoing rooms, and the 
gnawing" of their teeth is heard behind the 
wainscot, and their gleaming eyes peer through 
the holes in the worm-eaten tapestry, and they 
scream in shrill, unearthly notes in the dead of 
night, while the moaning wind sweeps, sob- 



1 1 8 On Cats and Dogs. 

bing, round the ruined turrent towers, and 
passes wailing like a woman through the cham- 
bers bare and tenantless. 

And dying prisoners, in their loathsome 
dungeons, see, through the horrid gloom, their 
small red eyes like glittering coals, hear, in the 
death-like silence, the rush of their claw-like 
feet, and start up shrieking in the darkness, and 
watch through the awful night. 

I love to read tales about rats. They make 
my flesh creep so. I like that tale of Bishop 
Hatto and the rats. The wicked Bishop, you 
know, had ever so much corn, stored in his 
granaries, and would not let the starving 
people touch it, but, when they prayed to him 
for food, gathered them together in his barn, 
and then shutting the doors on them, set fire 
to the place and burned them all to death. 
But the next day there came thousands upon 
thousands of rats, sent to do judgment on him. 
Then Bishop Hatto fled to to his strong tower 
that stood in the middle of the Rhine, and 
barred himself in, and fancied he was safe. 
But the rats ! they swam the river, they gnawed 



On Cats and Dogs. 119 

their way through the thick stone walls, and ate 
him alive where he sat. 

*' They have whetted their teeth against the stones, 
And now they pick the Bishop's bones ; 
They gnawed the flesh from every limb, 
For they were sent to do judgment on him." 

Oh, it's a lovely tale. 

Then there is the story of the Pied Piper of 
Hamelin, how first he piped the rats away, and 
afterwards, when the Mayor broke faith with 
him, drew all the children along with him, and 
went into the mountain. What a curious old 
legend that is ! I wonder what it means, or 
has it a meaning at all? There seems some- 
thing strange and deep lying hid beneath the 
rippling rhyme. It haunts me, that picture of 
the quaint, mysterious old piper, piping 
through Hamelin's narrow streets, and the 
children following with dancing feet and 
thoughtful, eager faces. The old folk try to 
stay them, but the children pay no heed. 
They hear the weird, witched music, and must 
follow. The games are left unfinished, and 



* 



1 20 On Cats and Dogs. 



the playthings drop from their careless hands. 
They know not whither they are hastening. 
The mystic music calls to them, and they fol- 
low, heedless and unasking where. It stirs 
and vibrates in their hearts, and other sounds 
grow faint. So they wander through Pied 
Piper street away from Hamelin town. 

I get thinking sometimes if the Pied Piper 
is really dead, or if he may not still be roam- 
ing up and down our streets and lanes, but 
playing now so softly that only the children 
hear him. Why do the little faces look so 
grave and solemn when they pause awhile from 
romping, and stand, deep wrapt, with straining 
eyes ? They only shake their curly heads, and 
dart back laughing to their playmates when we 
question them. But I fancy myself they have 
been listening to the magic music of the old 
Pied Piper, and, perhaps, with those bright eyes 
of theirs, have even seen his odd, fantastic 
figure, gliding unnoticed, through the whirl 
and throng. 

Even we grown-up children hear his piping 
now and then. But the yearning notes are 
very far away, and the noisy, blustering world 



&■ 



On Cats and Dogs. 121 



is always bellowing so loud, it drowns the 
dream-like melody. One day the sweet sad 
strains will sound out full and clear, and then 
we too shall, like the little children, throw our 
playthings all aside, and follow. The loving 
hands will be stretched out to stay us, and the 
voices we have learnt to listen for will cry tp 
us to stop. But we shall push the fond arms 
gently back, and pass out through the sorrow- 
ing house and through the open door. For 
the wild strange music will be ringing in our 
hearts, and we shall know the meaning of its 
song by then. 

I wish people could love animals without 
getting maudlin over them, as so many do. 
Women are the most hardened offenders in 
such respect, but even our intellectual sex often 
degrade pets into nuisances by absurd idolatry. 
There are the gushing young ladies who, hav- 
ing read David Copperfield, have thereupon 
sought out a small, long-haired dog of nonde- 
script breed, possessed of an irritating habit of 
criticising a man's trousers, and of finally 
commenting upon the same by a sniff, indi- 
cative of contempt and disgust. They talk 



122 On Cats and Dogs, 

sweet girlish prattle to this animal (when there 
is any one near enough to overhear them), and 
they kiss its nose, and put its unwashed head 
up against their cheek in a most touching man- 
ner ; though I have noticed that these caresses 
are principally performed when there are young 
men hanging about. 

Then there are the old ladies who worship a 
fat poodle, scant of breath and full of flees. 
I knew a couple of elderly spinsters once w^ho 
had a sort of German sausage on legs which 
they called a dog between them. They used to 
wash its face with warm water every morning. 
It had a mutton cutlet regularly for breakfast ; 
and on Sundays, when one of the ladies went 
to church, the other always stopped at home to 
keep the dog company. 

There are many families where the whole 
interest of life is centred upon the dog. Cats, 
by the way, rarely suffer from excess of adula- 
tion. A cat possesses a very fair sense of the 
ridiculous, and will put her paw down kindly 
but firmly upon any nonsence of this kind. 
Dogs, however, seem to like it. They en- 
courage their owners in the tomfoolery, and 



On Cats and Dogs. 123 

the consequence is, that in the circles I am 
speaking of, what ''dear Fido " has done, 
does do, will do, won't do, can do, can't do, 
was doing, is doing, is going to do, shall do, 
shan't do, and is about to be going to have 
done is the continual theme of discussion from 
morning till night. 

All the conversation, consisting, as it does, 
of the very dregs of imbecility, is addressed to 
this confounded animal. The family sit in a 
row all day long, watching him, commenting 
upon his actions, telling each other anecdotes 
about him, recalling his virtues, and remem- 
bering with tears how one day they lost him 
for two whole hours, on which occasion he was 
brought home in a most brutal manner by the 
butcher boy, who had been met carrying him 
by the scruff of his neck with one hand, while 
soundly cuffing his head with the other. 

After recovering from these bitter recollec- 
tions, they vie with each other in bursts of 
admiration for the brute, until some more 
than usually enthusiastic member, unable any 
longer to control his feelings, swoops down 
upon the unhappy quadruped, in a frenzy of 



124 



On Cats and Dogs. 



affection, clutches it to his heart, and slobbers 
over it. Whereupon, the others, mad with 
envy, rise up, and, seizing as much of the dog 
as the greed of the first one has left to them, 
murmur praise and devotion. 

Among these people, everything is done 
through the dog. If you want to make love 
to the eldest daughter, or get the old man to 
lend you the garden roller, or the mother to 
subscribe to the Society for the Suppression of 
Solo-cornet Players in Theatrical Orchestras 
(it's a pity there isn't one, anyhow), you have 
to begin with the dog. You must gain its 
approbation before they will even listen to you, 
and if, as is highly probable, the animal, whose 
frank doggy nature has been warped by the un- 
natural treatment he has received, responds to 
your overtures of friendship by viciously snap- 
ping at you, your cause is lost for ever. 

'*If Fido won't take to any one," the 
father has thoughtfully remarked beforehand, 
''I say that man is not to be trusted. You 
know, Maria, how often I have said that. Ah ! 
he knows, bless him." 

Drat him ! 



' i 



1 



"On Cats and Dogs, 1 25 

And to think that the surly brute was once 
an innocent puppy, all legs and head, full of 
fun and play, and burning with ambition to 
become a big, good dog, and bark like mother. 

Ah me ! life sadly changes us all. The 
world seems a vast horrible grinding machine, 
into which what is fresh and bright and pure is 
pushed in at one end, to come out old and 
crabbed and wrinkled at the other. 

Look even at Pussy Sobersides, with her dull 
sleepy glance, her grave slow walk, and digni- 
fied, prudish airs ; who could ever think that 
once she was the blue-eyed, whirling, scamper- 
ing, head-over-heels, mad little firework that 
we called a kitten. * 

What marvellous vitality a kitten has. It is 
really something very beautiful the way life 
bubbles over in the little creatures. They rush 
about, and mew, and spring j dance on their 
hind legs, embrace everything with their front 
ones, roll over and over, lie on their backs and 
kick. They don't know what to do with 
themselves, they are so full of life. 

Can you rememember, reader, when you 
and I felt something of the same sort of thing? 



126 On Cats and Dogs. 

Can you remember those glorious days of fresh 
young manhood ; how, when coming home 
along the moonlit road, we felt too full of life 
for sober walking, and had to spring and skip, 
and wave our arms, and shout, till belated 
farmers' wives thought — and with good reason 
too — that we were mad, and kept close to the 
hedge, while we stood and laughed aloud to 
see them scuttle off so fast, and made their 
blood run cold with a wild parting whoop ; 
and the tears came, we knew not why. Oh, 
that magnificent young Life ! that crowned us 
kings of the earth ; that rushed through every 
tingling vein, till we seemed to walk on air; 
that thrilled through our throbbing brains, and 
told us to go forth and conquer the whole 
world ; that welled up in our young hearts, 
till we longed to stretch out our arms and 
gather all the toiling men and woman and the 
little children to our breast, and love them all 
— all. Ah ! they were grand days, those deep 
full days, when our coming life, like an unseen 
organ, pealed strange, yearnful music in our 
ears, and our young blood cried out like a war- 
horse for the battle. Ah, our pulse beats slow 



On Cats and Dogs. 127 



and steady now, and our old joints are rheu- 
matic, and we love our easy chair and pipe, 
and sneer at boys' enthusiasm. But oh ! for 
one brief moment of that god-like life again. 



ON BEING SHY. 



A LL great literary men are shy. I am my- 
'^*- self though I am told it is hardly notice- 
able. 

I am glad it is not. It used to be extremely 
prominent at one time, and was the cause of 
much misery to myself, and discomfort to every 
one about me — my lady friends, especially, 
complained most bitterly about it 

A shy man's lot is not a happy one. The 
men dislike him, the women despise him, and 
he dislikes and despises himself. Use brings 
him no relief, and there is no cure for him 
except time j though I once came across a de- 
licious receipt for overcoming the misfortune. 
It appeared among the *' answers to 'corre- 
spondents " in a small, weekly journal, and ran 
as follows — I have never forgotten it : — ''Adopt 
an easy and pleasing manner, especially towards 
ladies. ' ' 

Poor wretch ! I can imagine the grin with 
128 



On Being Shy. 129 

which he must have read that advice. ''Adopt 
an easy and pleasing manner, especially towards 
ladies," forsooth! Don't you adopt anything 
of the kind, my dear young shy friend. Your 
attempt to put on any other disposition than 
your own will infallibly result in your becom- 
ing ridiculously gushing and offensively familiar. 
Be your own natural self, and then you will 
only be thought to be surly and stupid. 

The shy man does have some slight revenge 
upon society for the torture it inflicts upon 
him. He is able, to a certain extent, to com- 
municate his misery. He frightens other people 
as much as they frighten him. He acts like a 
damper upon the whole room, and the most 
jovial spirits become, in his presence, depressed 
and nervous. 

This is a good deal brought about by mis- 
understanding. Many people mistake the shy 
man's timidity for overbearing arrogance, and 
are awed and insulted by it. His awkwardness 
is resented as insolent carelessness, and when, 
terror-stricken at the first word addressed to 
him, the blood rushes to his head, and the 
power of speech completely fails him, he is 

9 



130 On Being Shy. 

regarded as an awful example of the evil effects 
of giving way to passion. 

But, indeed, to be misunderstood is the shy- 
man's fate on every occasion, and, whatever 
impression he endeavours to create, he is sure 
to convey its opposite. When he makes a joke, 
it is looked upon as a pretended relation of fact, 
and his want of veracity much condemned. 
His sarcasm is accepted as his literal opinion, 
and gains for him the reputation of being an 
ass; while if, on the other hand, wishing to 
ingratiate himself, he ventures upon a little bit 
of flattery, it is taken for satire, and he is hated 
ever afterwards. 

These, and the rest of a shy man's troubles, 
are always very amusing, to other people ; and 
have afforded material for comic writing from 
time immemorial. But if we look a little 
deeper, we shall find there is a pathetic, one 
might almost say a tragic, side to the picture. 
A shy man means a lonely man — a man cut off 
from all companionship, all sociability. He 
moves about the world, but does not mix with 
it. Between him and his fellow-men there runs 
ever an impassable barrier — a strong, invisible 



On Being Shy. 131 

wall, that, trying in vain to scale, he but 
bruises himself against. He sees the pleasant 
faces, and hears the pleasant voices on the 
other side, but he cannot stretch his hand 
across to grasp another hand. He stands 
watching the merry groups, and he longs to 
speak, and to claim kindred with them. But 
they pass him by, chatting gaily to one an- 
other, and he cannot stay them. He tries to 
reach them, but his prison walls move with 
him, and hem him in on every side. In the 
busy street, in the crowded room, in the grind 
of work, in the whirl of pleasure, amidst the 
many or amidst the few j wherever men con- 
gregate together, wherever the music of human 
speech is heard, and human thought is flashed 
from human eyes, there, shunned and solitary, 
the shy man, like a leper, stands apart. His 
soul is full of love and longing, but the world 
knows it not. The iron mask of shyness is 
rivited .before his face, and the man beneath is 
never seen. Genial words and hearty greetings 
are ever rising to his lips, but they die away in 
unheard whispers behind the steel clamps. His 
heart aches for the weary brother, but his sym- 



132 On Being Shy. 

pathy is dumb. Contempt and indignation 
against wrong choke up his throat, and finding 
no safety valve, when in passionate utterance 
they may burst forth, they only turn in again 
and harm him. All the hate, and scorn, and 
love of a deep nature, such as the shy man is 
ever cursed by, fester and corrupt within, in- 
stead of spending themselves abroad, and sour 
him into a misanthrope and cynic. 

Yes, shy men, like ugly women, have a bad 
time of it in this world, to go through which 
with any comfort needs the hide of a rhinoc- 
eros. Thick skin is, indeed, our moral clothes, 
and without it, we are not fit to be seen about 
in civilised society. A poor gasping, blushing 
creature, with trembling knees and twitching 
hands, is a painful sight to every one, and if it 
cannot cure itself, the sooner it goes and hangs 
itself the better. 

The disease can be cured. For the comfort 
of the shy, I can assure them of that from per- 
sonal experience. I do not like speaking 
about myself, as may have been noticed, but in 
the cause of humanity I, on this occasion, will 
do so, and will confess that at one time I was, 



On Being Shy. 133 



as the young man in the Bab Ballad says, '' the 
shyest of the shy," and '^vhenever I was in 
troduced to any pretty maid, my knees they 
knocked together just as if I was afraid. ' ' Now, 
I would — nay, have — on this very day before 
yesterday I did the deed. Alone and entirely 
by myself (as the schoolboy said in translating 
the Belluni Gallicuni) did I beard a railway 
refreshment-room young lady in her own lair. 
I rebuked her in terms of mingled bitterness and 
sorrow for her callousness and want of con- 
descension. I insisted, courteously but firmly, 
on being accorded that deference and attention 
that was the right of the travelling Briton ; 
and, at the end, / looked her full in the face. 
Need I say more ? 

True, that immediately after doing so, I left 
the room with what may possibly h;ive ap- 
peared to be precipitation, and without waiting 
for any refreshment. But that was because I 
had changed my mind, not because I was 
frightened, you understand. 

One consolation that shy folk can take unto 
themselves is that shyness is certainly no sign 
of stupidity. It is easy enough for bull-headed 



134 On Being Shy. 



clowns to sneer at nerves, but the highest na- 
tures are not necessarily those containing the 
greatest amount of moral brass. The horse is 
not an inferior animal to the cock-sparrow, 
nor the deer of the forest to the pig. Shyness 
simply means extreme sensibility, and has 
nothing whatever to do with self-consciousness 
or with conceit, though its relationship to both 
is continually insisted upon by the poll-parrot 
school of philosopy. 

Conceit, indeed, is the quickest cure for it. 
When it once begins to dawn upon you that 
you are a good deal cleverer than any one else 
in this world, bashfulness becomes shocked, 
and leaves you. When you can look round a 
roomful of people, and think that each one is a 
mere child in intellect compared with your- 
self, you feel no more shy of them than you 
would of a select company of magpies or 
orang-outangs. 

Conceit is the finest armour that a man can 
wear. Upon its smooth, impenetrable surface 
the puny dagger-thrusts of spite and envy 
glance harmlessly aside. Without that breast- 
plate, the sword of talent cannot force its way 



On Being Shy. 135 



through the battle of life, for blows have to be 
borne as well^as dealt. I do not, of course, 
speak of the conceit that displays itself in an 
elevated nose and a falsetto voice. That is not 
real conceit, that is only playing at being con- 
ceiti^ j like children play at being kings and 
queens, and go strutting about with feathers 
and long trains. Genuine conceit does not 
make a man objectionable. On the contrary, 
it tends to make him genial, kind-hearted, and 
simple. He has no need of affectation, he is 
far too well satisfied with his own character ; 
and his pride is too deep-seated to appear at 
all on the outside. Careless alike of praise or 
blame, he can afford to be truthful. Too far, 
in fancy, above the rest of mankind to trouble 
about their petty distinctions, he is equally at 
home with duke or costermonger. And, valu- 
ing no one's standard but his own, he is never 
tempted to practise that miserable pretence 
that less self-reliant people offer up as an 
hourly sacrifice to the god of their neighbours* 
opinion. 

The shy man, on the other hand, is humble, 
modest of his own judgment, and over- 



136 On Being Shy. 

anxious concerning that of others. But this, 
in the case of a young man, is surely right 
enough. His character is unformed. It is 
slowly evolving itself out of a chaos of doubt 
and disbelief. Before the growing insight and 
experience, the diffidence recedes. A ...man 
rarely carries his shyness past the hobbledehoy 
period. Even if his own inward strength does 
not throw it off, the rubbings of the world 
generally smooth it down. You scarcely ever 
meet a really shy man — except in novels or on 
the stage, where, by-the-bye, he is much ad- 
mired, especially by the women. 

There, in that supernatural land, he appears 
as a fair-haired and saint-like young man — fair 
hair and goodness always go together on the 
stage. No respectable audience would believe 
in one without the other. I knew an actor 
who mislaid his wig once, and had to rush on 
to play the hero in his own hair, which was jet 
black, and the gallery howled at all his noble 
sentiments under the impression that he was 
the villain. He — the shy young man — loves 
the heroine, oh so devotedly (but only in 
asides, for he dare not tell her of it), and he is 



On Being Shy. 137 

so noble and unselfish, and speaks in such a 
low voice, and is so good to his mother j and 
the bad people in the play, they laugh at him, 
and jeer at him, but he takes it all so gently, 
and, in the end, it transpires that he is such a 
clever man, though nobody knew it, and then 
the heroine tells him she loves him, and he is 
so surprised, and oh, so happy ! and every- 
body loves him, and asks him to forgive them, 
which he does in a few well-chosen and 
sarcastic words, and blesses them ; and he 
seems to have generally such a good time of it 
that all the young fellows who are not shy long 
to be shy. But the really shy man knows 
better. He knows that it is not quite so 
pleasant in reality. He is not quite so in- 
teresting there as in the fiction. He is a little 
more clumsy and stupid, and a little less de- 
voted and gentle, and his hair is much darker, 
which, taken altogether, considerably alters the 
aspect of the case. 

The point where he does resemble his ideal 
is in his faithfulness. I am fully prepared to 
allow the shy young man that virtue ; he is 
constant in his love. But the reason is not far 



138 On Being Shy. 

to seek. The fact is it exhausts all his stock 
of courage to look one woman in the face, and 
it would be simply impossible for him to go 
through the ordeal with a second. He stands 
in far too much dread of the whole female sex 
to want to go gadding about with many of 
them. One is quite enough for him. 

Now, it is different with the young man who 
is not shy. He has temptations which his 
bashful brother never encounters. He looks 
around, and everywhere sees roguish eyes and 
laughing lips. What more natural than that 
amidst so many roguish eyes and laughing lips 
he should become confused, and, forgetting 
for the moment which particular pair of 
roguish eyes and laughing lips it is that he be- 
longs to, go off making love to the wrong set. 
The shy man, who never looks at anything but 
his own boots, sees not, and is not tempted. 
Happy shy man ! 

Not but what the shy man himself would 
much rather not be happy in that way. He 
longs to *'go it " with the others, and curses 
himself every day for not being able to. He 
will, now and a^ain, screwing up his courage 



On Bein^ Shy. 139 

by a tremendous effort, plunge into roguish- 
ness. But it is always a terrible fiasco, and 
after one or two feeble flounders, he crawls out 
again, limp and pitiable. 

I say ''pitiable,'" though I am afraid he 
never is pitied. There are certain misfortunes 
which, while inflicting a vast amount of sufl'er- 
ing upon their victims, gain for them no 
sympathy. Losing an umbrella, falling in love, 
toothache, black eyes, and having your hat sat 
upon, may be mentioned as a few examples, 
but the chief of them all is shyness. The shy 
man is regarded as an animate joke. His 
tortures are the sport of the drawing-room 
arena, and are pointed out and discussed with 
much gusto. 

'* Look," cry his tittering audience to each 
other, '•' he's blushing ! " 

"Just watch his legs," says one. 

''Do you notice how he is sitting? " adds 
another : " right on the edge of the chair." 

"Seems to have plenty of colour," sneers a 
millitary-looking gentleman. 

"Pity he's got so many hands," murmurs 
an elderly lady, with her own calmy folded on 
her lap. " They quite confuse him." 



I40 



On Being Shy. 



'* A yard or two off his feet wouldn't be a 
disadvantage," chimes in the comic man, 
''especially as he seems so anxious to hide 
them." 

And then another suggests that with such a 
voice he ought to have been a sea captain. 
Some draw attention to the desperate way in 
which he is grasping his hat. Some comment 
upon his limited powers of conversation. 
Others remark upon the troublesome nature of 
his cough. And so on, until his peculiarities 
and the company are both thoroughly ex- 
hausted. 

His friends and relations make matters still 
more unpleasant for the poor boy (friends and 
relations are privileged to be more disagreeable 
than other people). Not content with making 
fun of him amongst themselves, they insist on 
his seeing the joke. They mimic and caricature 
him for his own edification. One, pretending 
to imitate him, goes outside, and comes in 
again in a ludicrously nervous manner, explain- 
ing to him afterwards that that is the way he — 
meaning the shy fellow — walks into a room ; 
or, turning to him with, '' This is the way you 
shake hands," proceeds to go through a comic 



On Being Shy. 141 

pantomime with the rest of the room, taking 
hold of every one's hand as if it were a hot 
plate, and flabbily dropping it again. And 
then they ask him why he blushes, and why he 
stammers, and why he always speaks in an 
almost inaudible tone, as if they thought he 
did it on purpose. Then one of them, stick- 
ing out his chest, and strutting about the room 
like a pouter-pigeon, suggests quite seriously 
that that is the style he should adopt. The old 
man slaps him on the back, and says, ^'Be 
bold, my boy. Don't be afraid of any one." 
The mother says, " Never do anything that you 
need be ashamed of, Algernon, and then yon 
never need be ashamed of anything you do," 
and, beaming mildly at him, seems surprised 
at the clearness of her own logic. The boys 
tell him that he's ''worse than a girl,'"' and the 
girls repudiate the implied slur upon the sex 
by indignantly exclaiming that they are sure 
no girl would be half so bad. 

They are quite right ; no girl would be. 
There is no such thing as a shy woman, or, at 
all events, I have never come across one, and, 
until I do, I shall not believe in them. I know 
that the generally accepted belief is quite the 



142 On Being Shy, 



reverse. All women are supposed to be like 
timid, startled fawns, blushing and casting 
down their gentle eyes when looked at, and 
running away when spoken to ; while we men 
are supposed to be a bold and rollicky lot, and 
the poor, dear little women admire us for it, 
but are terribly afraid of us. It is a pretty 
theory, but, like most generally accepted theo- 
ries, mere nonsense. The girl of twelve is self- 
contained, and as cool as the proverbial cucum- 
ber, while her brother of twenty stammers and 
stutters by her side. A woman will enter a 
concert-room late, interrupt the performance, 
and disturb the whole audience without moving 
a hair, while her husband follows her, a crushed 
heap of apologising misery. 

The superior nerve of women in all matters 
connected with love, from the casting of the 
first sheep's eye down to the end of the honey- 
moon, is too well acknowledged to need com- 
ment. Nor is the example a fair one to cite in 
the present instance, the positions not being 
equally balanced. Love is woman's business, 
and in '' business " we all lay aside our natural 
weaknesses — the shyest man I ever knew was a 
photographic tout. 






I 



/ ON BABIES, 

(~\^ yes, I do — I know a lot about 'em. I 
^-^ was one myself once — though not long, 
not so long as my clothes. They were very 
long, I recollect, and always in my way when I 
wanted to kick. Why do babies have such 
yards of unnecessary clothing? It is not a 
riddle. I really want to know. I never could 
understand it. Is it that the parents are 
ashamed of the size of the child, and wish to 
make believe that it is longer than it actually 
is? I asked a nurse once why it was. She 
said — 

*'Lor', sir, they always have long clothes, 
bless their little hearts." 

And when I explained that her answer, 
although doing credit to her feelings, hardly dis- 
posed of my difficulty, she replied — 

*'Lor', sir, you wouldn't have 'em in short 
clothes, poor little dears? " And she said it in 
a tone that seemed to imply 1 had suggested 
some unmanly outrage. 

143 



144 On Babies. 

Since then, I have felt shy at making in- 
quiries on the subject, and the reason — if reason 
there be — is still a mystery to me. But, in- 
deed, putting them in any clothes at all seems 
absurd to my mind. Goodness knows, there is 
enough of dressing and undressing to be gone 
through in life, without beginning it'before we 
need ; and one would think that people who 
live in bed might, at all events, be spared the 
torture. Why wake the poor little wretches up 
in the morning to take one lot of clothes off, 
fix another lot on, and put them to bed again ; 
and then, at night, haul them out once more, 
merely to change everything back? And when 
all is done, what difference is there, I should 
like to know, between a baby's night-shirt and 
the thing it wears in the day-time ? 

Very likely, however, I am only making my- 
self ridiculous — I often do ; so I am informed 
— and I will, therefore, say no more upon this 
matter of clothes, except only that it would be 
of great convenience if some fashion were 
adopted, enabling you to tell a boy from a girl. 

At present it is most awkward. Neither 
hair, dress, nor conversation affords the slightest 



On Babies. 145 

clue, and you are left to guess. By some 
mysterious law of Nature you invariably guess 
wrong, and are thereupon regarded by all the 
relatives and friends as a mixture of fool and 
knave, the enormity of alluding to a male babe 
as '' she " being only equalled by the atrocity of 
referring to a female infant as " he." Which- 
ever sex the particular child in question happens 
not to belong to is considered as beneath con- 
tempt, and any mention of it is taken as a 
personal insult to the family. 

And, as you value your fair name, do not 
attempt to get out of the difficulty by talking 
of '* it." There are various methods by which 
you may achieve ignominy and shame. By 
•murdering a large and respected family in cold 
blood, and afterwards depositing their bodies 
in the water companies' reservoir, you will 
gain much unpopularity in the neighbourhood 
of your crime, and even robbing a church will 
get you cordially disliked, especially by the 
vicar. But if you desire to drain to the dregs 
the fullest cup of scorn and hatred that a 
fellow human creature can pour out for you, 
let a young mother hear you call dear 
baby 'Mt." 10 



I 



146 On Babies. 

Your best plan is to address the article as 
"little angel." The noun angel "being of 
common gender, suits the case admirably, and 
the epithet is sure of being favourably received. 
"Pet" or "beauty" are useful for variety's 
sake, but " angel " is the term that brings you 
the greatest credit for sense and good feeling. 
The word should be preceded by a short 
giggle, and accompanied by as much smile as 
possible. And, whatever you do, don't forget 
to say that the child has got its father's nose. 
This "fetches" the parents (if I may be 
allowed a vulgarism ) more than anything. 
They will pretend to laugh at the idea at first, 
and will say, "Oh, nonsense! " You must 
then get excited, and insist that it is a fact.- 
You need have no conscientious scruples on 
the subject, because the thing's nose really 
does resemble its father's — at all events quite 
as much as it does anything else in nature — 
being, as it is, a mere smudge. 

Do not despise these hints, my friends. 
There may come a time when, with mamma 
on one side and grandmamma on the other, a 
group of admiring young ladies (not admiring 



On Babies. 147 

youj though) behind, and a bald-headed dab 
of humanity in front, you will be extremely 
thankful for some idea of what to say. A man 
— an unmarried man, that is — is never seen to 
such disadvantage as when undergoing the 
ordeal of ''seeing baby." A cold shudder 
runs down his back at the bare proposal, and 
the sickly smile with which he says how de- 
lighted he shall be, ought surely to move even 
a mother's heart, unless, as I am inclined to 
believe, the whole proceeding i^a mere device, 
adopted by wives to discourage the visits of 
bachelor friends. 

It is a cruel trick, though, whatever its 
excuse may be. The bell is rung, and some- 
body sent to tell nurse to bring baby down. 
This is the signal for all the females present to 
commence talking ''baby," during which 
time, you are left to your own sad thouglits, 
and to speculations upon the practicability of 
suddenly recollecting an important engage- 
ment, and the likelihood ofyour being believed 
if you do. Just when you have concocted an 
absurdly implausible tale about a man outside, 
the door opens, and a tall, severe- looking 



148 On Babies. 

woman enters, carrying what at first sight ap- 
pears to be a particularly skinny bolster, with 
the feathers all at one end. Instinct, however, 
tells you that this is the baby, and yon rise 
with a miserable attempt at appearing eager. 
When the first gush of feminine enthusiasm 
with which the object in question is received 
has died out, and the number of ladies talking 
at once has been reduced to the ordinary four 
or five, the circle of fluttering petticoats 
divides, and room is made for you to step 
forward. This you do with much the same air 
that you would walk into the dock at Bow 
Street, and then, feeling unutterably miserable, 
you stand solemnly staring at the child. 
There is dead silence, and you know that every 
one is waiting for you to speak. You try to 
think of something to say, but find, to your 
horror, that your reasoning faculties have left 
you. It is a moment of despair, and your evil 
genius, seizing the opportunity, suggests to 
you some of the most idiotic remarks that it is 
possible for a human being to perpetrate. 
Glancing round with an imbecile smile, you 
sniggeringly observe that ''It hasn't got much 



On Babies. 149 

hair, has it?" Nobody answers you for a 
minute, but at last the stately nurse says with 
much gravity — "It is not customary for 
children five weeks old to have long hair." 
Another silence follows this, and you feel you 
are being given a second chance, which you 
avail yourself of by inquiring if it can walk yet, 
or what they feed it on. 

By this time, you have got to be regarded as 
not quite right in your head, and pity is the 
only thing felt for you. The nurse, however, 
is determined that, insane or not, there shall 
be no shirking, and that you shall go through 
your task to the end. In the tones of a high 
priestess, directing some religious mystery, she 
says, holding the bundle towards you, '' Take 
her in your arms, sir." You are too crushed 
to offer any resistance, and so meekly accept 
the burden. ''Put your arm more down her 
middle, sir," says the high priestess, and then 
all step back and watch you intently as though 
you were going to do a trick with it. 

What to do you know no more than you did 
what to say. It is certain something must be 
done, however, and the only thing that occurs 



150 On Babies. 

to you is to heave the unhappy infant up and 
down to the accompaniment of ** oopsee- 
daisy," or some remark of equal intelligence. 
"I wouldn't jig her, sir, if I were you," says 
the nurse; ''a very little upsets her." You 
promptly decide not to jig her, and sincerely 
hope that you have not gone too far already. 

At this point, the child itself, who has 
hitherto been regarding you with an expression 
of mingled horror and disgust, puts an end to 
the nonsense by beginning to yell at the top 
of its voice, at which the priestess rushes 
forward and snatches it from you with, 
"There, there, there! What did ums do to 
ums?" *'How very extraordinary!" you 
say pleasantly. ''Whatever made it go off like 
that ? " ''Oh, why you must have done some- 
thing to her ! ' ' says the mother indignantly ; 
" the child wouldn't scream like that for 
nothing." It is evident they think you have 
been running pins into iU 

The brat is calmed at last, and would no 
doubt remain quiet enough, only some mis- 
chievous busybody points you out again with 
"Who's this, baby?" and the intelligent 



On Babies. 151 

child, recognising you, howls louder than ever. 
Whereupon, some fat old lady remarks that 
'' It's strange how children take a dislike to 
any one." ''Oh, they know," replies another 
mysteriously. " It's a wonderful thing," adds 
a third ; and then everybody looks sideways at 
you, convinced that you are a scoundrel of the 
blackest dye ; and then glory in the beautiful 
idea that your true character, unguessed by 
your fellowmen, has been discovered by the 
untaught instinct of a little child. 

Babies, though, with all their crimes and 
errors, are not without their use — not without 
use, surely, when they fill an empty heart ; not 
without use when, at their call, sunbeams of 
love break through care-clouded faces ; not 
without use when their little fingers press 
wrinkles into smiles. 

Odd little people ! They are the uncon- 
scious comedians of the world's great stage, 
They supply the humour *in life's all too heavy 
drama. Each one, a small but determined 
opposition to the order of things in general, 
is for ever doing the wrong thing, at the wrong 
time, in the wrong place, and in the wrong 



152 On Babies, 

way. The nurse-girl, who sent Jenny to see 
what Tommy and Totty were doing, and " tell 
'em they musn't/' knew infantile nature. 
Give an average baby a fair chance, and if it 
doesn't do something it oughn't to, a doctor 
should be called in at once. 

They have a genius for doing the most 
ridiculous things, and they do them in a grave, 
stoical manner that is irresistible. The busi- 
ness-like air with which two of them will join 
hands and proceed due east at a break-neck 
toddle, while an excitable big sister is roaring 
for them to follow her in a westerly direction, 
is most amusing — except, perhaps, for the big 
sister. They walk round a soldier, staring at 
his legs with the greatest curiosity, and poke 
him to see if he is real. They stoutly main- 
tain, against all argument, and much to the 
discomfort of the victim, that the bashful 
young man at the end of the 'bus is " dadda." 
A crowded street corner suggests itself to their 
minds as a favourable spot for the discussion of 
family affairs at a shrill treble. When in the 
middle of crossing the road, they are seized 
with a sudden impulse to dance, and the door- 



I 



I 



On Babies. 153 

step of a busy shop is the place they always 
select for sitting down and taking off their shoes. 

When at home, they find the biggest walk- 
ing stick in the house, or an umbrella — open 
preferred — of much assistance in getting 
upstairs. They discover that they love Mary 
Ann at the precise mom.ent when that faithful 
domestic is blackleading the stove, and nothing 
will relieve their feelings but to embrace her 
then and there. With regard to food, their 
favourite dishes are coke and cat's-meat. 
They nurse pussy upside down, and they show 
their affection for the dog by pulling his tail. 

They are a great deal of trouble, and they 
make a place untidy, and they cost a lot of 
money to keep; but still we would not have 
the house without them. It would not be 
home without their noisy tongues and their 
mischief-making hands. Would not the rooms 
seem silent without their pattering feet, and 
might not you stray apart if no prattling voices 
called you together? 

It should be so, and yet I have sometimes 
thought the tiny hand seemed as a wedge, 
dividing. It is a bearish task to quarrel with 



1^4 On Babies. 

that purest of all human affections — that per- 
fecting touch to a woman's life — a mother's 
love. It is a holy love, that we coarser-fibred 
men can hardly understand, and I would not 
be deemed to lack reverence for it when I say 
that surely it need not swallow up all other af- 
fections. The baby need not take your whole 
heart like the rich man who walled up the 
desert well. Is there not another thirsty 
traveller standing by ? 

Do not, in your desire to be a good mother, 
forget to be a good wife. No need for all the 
thought and care to be only for one. Do not, 
whenever poor Edwin wants you to come out, 
answer indignantly, " What, and leave baby !" 
Do not spend all your evenings upstairs, and 
do not confine your conversation exclusively 
to whopping-cough and measles. My dear 
little woman, the child is not going to die 
every time it sneezes, the house is not bound 
to get burnt down, and the nurse run away 
with a soldier, every time you go outside the 
front door ; nor the cat sure to come and sit 
on the precious child's chest the moment you 
leave the bedside. You worry yourself a good 



On Babies. 155 

deal to much about that solitary chick, and you 
worry everybody else too. Try and think of 
your other duties, and your pretty face will not 
be always puckered into wrinkles, and there 
will be cheerfulness in the parlour as well as in 
the nursery. Think of your big baby a little. 
Dance him about a bit ; call him pretty names ; 
laugh at him now and then. It is only the 
first baby that takes up the whole of a woman's 
time. Five or six do not require nearly so 
much attention as one. But before then the 
mischief has been done. A house where there 
seems no room for him, and a wife too busy 
to think of him has lost their hold on that so 
unreasonable husband of yours, and he has 
learnt to look elsewhere for comfort and com- 
panionship. 

But there, there, there ! I shall get myself 
the character of a baby hater, if I talk any 
more in this strain. And Heaven knows I am 
not one. Who could be, to look into the inno- 
cent faces clustered in timid helplessness round 
those great gates that open down into the 
world. 

The world ! the small round world ! what a 



156 On Babies. 

vast, mysterious place it must seem to baby 
eyes ! What a trackless continent the back 
garden appears ! What marvellous explora- 
tions they make in the cellar under the stairs ! 
With what awe they gaze down the long street, 
wondering, like us bigger babies, when we gaze 
up at the stars, where it all ends ! 

And down that longest street of all — that 
long, dim street of life that stretches out before 
them — what grave, old-fashioned looks they 
seem to cast ! What pitiful, frightened looks 
sometimes ! I saw a little mite sitting on a 
doorstep in a Soho slum one night, and I shall 
never forget the look that the gas-lamp showed 
me on its wizen face — a look of dull despair, as 
if, from the squalid court, the vista of its own 
squalid life had risen, ghost-like, and struck its 
heart dead with horror. 

Poor little feet, just commencing the stony 
journey ! We, old travellers, far down the 
road, can only pause to wave a hand to you. 
You come out of the dark mist, and we looking 
back, see you, so tiny in the distance, standing 
on the brow of the hill, your arms stretched out 
towards us. God speed you ! We would stay 



On Babies. 157 

and take your little hands in ours, but the 
murmur of the great sea is in our ears, and we 
may not linger. We must hasten down, for the 
shadow ships are waiting to spread their sable 
sails. 



ON EATING AND DRINKING, 

T ALWAYS was fond of eating and drinking, 
-■■ even as a child — especially eating, in those 
early days. 1 had an appetite then, also a 
digestion. I remember a dull-eyed, livid-com- 
plexioned gentleman coming to dine at our 
house once. He watched me eating for about 
five minutes, quite fascinated, seemingly, and 
then he turned to my father, with, ''Does your 
boy ever suffer from dyspepsia ? ' ' 

" I never heard him complain of anything of 
that kind," replied my father. *' Do you ever 
suffer from dyspepsia, Collywobbles? " (They 
called me Collywobbles, but it was not my real 
name.) 

"No, pa," I answered. After which, I 
added, ''What is dyspepsia, pa?" 

My livid-complexioned friend regarded me 
with a look of mingled amazement and envy. 
Then in a tone ot infinite pity he slowly said, 
" You will know — some day." 

158 



On Eating and Drinking. 159 



My poor, dear mother used to say she liked 
to see me eat, and it has always been a pleasant 
reflection to me since, that I must have given 
her much gratification in that direction. A 
growing, healthy lad, taking plenty of exercise, 
and careful to restrain himself from indulging 
in too much study, can generally satisfy the 
most exacting expectations as regards his feed- 
ing powers. 

It is amusing to see boys eat, when you have 
not got to pay for it. Their idea of a square 
meal is a pound and a half of roast beef with 
five or six good-sized potatoes (soapy ones pre- 
ferred, as being more substantial), plenty of 
greens, and four thick slices of Yorkshire pud- 
ding, followed by a couple of currant dump- 
lings, a few green apples, a pen'orth of nuts, 
half-a-dozen jumbles, and a bottle of ginger 
beer. After that, they play at horses. 

How they must despise us men, who require 
to sit quiet for a couple of hours after dining 
off a spoonful of clear soup and the wing of a 
chicken ! 

But the boys have not all the advantages on 
their side. A boy never enjoys the luxury of 



l6o On Eating and Drinking. 



being satisfied. A boy never feels full. He 
can never stretch out his legs, put his hands 
behind his head, and closing his eyes, sink into 
the ethereal blissfulness that encompasses the 
well-dined man. A dinner makes no difference 
whatever to a boy. To a man, it is a good 
fairy's potion, and, after it, the world appears a 
brighter and a better place. A man who has 
dined satisfactorily experiences a yearning love 
towards all his fellow creatures. He strokes 
the cat quite gently, and calls it ^' poor pussy," 
in tones full of the tenderest emotion. He 
sympathises with the members of the German 
band outside, and wonders if they are cold \ 
and, for the moment, he does not even hate his 
wife's relations. 

A good dinner brings out all the softer side 
of a man. Under its genial influence, the 
gloomy and morose become jovial and chatty. 
Sour, starchy individuals, who all the rest of 
the day go about looking as if they lived on 
vinegar and Epsom salts, break out into 
wreathed smiles after dinner, and exhibit a 
tendency to pat small children on the head, 
and to talk to them — vaguely — about sixpences. 



On Eating and Drinking. i6i 

Serious young men thaw, and become mildly 
cheerful ; and snobbish young men, of the 
heavy moustache type, forget to make them- 
selves objectionable. 

I always feel sentimental myself after dinner. 
It is the only time when I can properly appre- 
ciate love stories. Then, when the hero clasps 
''her" to his heart in one last wild embrace, 
and stifles a sob, I feel as sad as though I 
had dealt at whist, and turned up only a 
deuce ; and, when the heroine dies in the 
end, I weep. If I read the same tale early 
in the morning, I should sneer at it. Diges- 
tion, or rather indigestion, has a marvellous 
effect upon the heart. If I want to write 
anything very pathetic — I mean, If I want 
to try to write anything very pathetic — I 
eat a large plateful of hot buttered muffins 
about an hour beforehand, and, then, by the 
time I sit down to my work, a feeling of unut- 
terable melancholy has come over me. I picture 
heart-broken lovers parting for ever at lonely 
wayside stiles, while the sad twilight deepens 
around them, and only the tinkling of a 
distant sheep bell breaks the sorrow-laden 
II 



1 62 On Eating and Drinking. 

silence. Old men sit and gaze at withered 
flowers till their sight is dimmed by the mist 
of tears. Little dainty maidens wait and 
watch at open casements; but, ''he cometh 
not," and the heavy years roll by, and the 
sunny gold tresses wear white and thin. The 
babies that they dandled have become grown 
men and women with podgy torments of their 
own, and the playmates that they laughed with 
are lying very silent under the waving grass. 
But still they wait and watch, till the dark 
shadows of the unknown night steal up and 
gather round them, and the world with its 
childish troubles fades from their aching eyes. 

I see pale corpses tossed on white- foamed 
waves, and death-beds stained with bitter tears, 
and graves in trackless deserts. I hear the wild 
wailing of women, the low moaning of the 
little children, the dry sobbing of strong men. 
It's all the muflins. I could not conjure up 
one melancholy fancy upon a mutton chop and 
a glass of champagne. 

A full stomach is a great aid to poetry, 
and, indeed no sentiment of any kind can 
stand upon an empty one. We have not time 



On Eating and Drinking. 163 

or inclination to indulge in fanciful troubles, 
until we have got rid of our real misfortunes. 
We do not sigh over dead dicky-birds with the 
bailiffs in the house ; and, when we do not 
know where on earth to get our next shilling 
from, we do not worry as to whether our 
mistress's smiles are cold, or hot, or lukewarm, 
or anything else about them. 

Foolish people — when I say " foolish 
people" in this contemptuous way, I mean 
people who entertain different opinions to 
mine. If there is one person I do despise 
more than another, it is the man who does not 
think exactly the same on all topics as I do. 
Foolish people, I say, then, who have never 
experienced much of either, will tell you that 
mental distress is far more agonising than 
bodily. Romantic and touching theory ! so 
comforting to the love-sick young sprig who 
looks down patronisingly at some poor devil 
with a white starved face, and thinks to himself, 
* ' Ah, how happy you are compared with 
me! " so soothing to fat old gentlemen who 
cackle about the superiority of poverty over 
riches. But it is all nonsense — all cant. An 



164 On Eaiing and Drinking, 

aching head soon makes one forget an aching 
heart. A broken finger will drive away all 
recollections of an empty chair. And when a 
man feels really hungry, he does not feel any- 
thing else. 

We sleek, well-fed folk can hardly realise 
what feeling hungry is like. We know what it 
is to have no appetite, and not to care for the 
dainty victuals placed before us, but we do 
not understand what it means to sicken for 
food — to die for bread while others waste it — 
to gaze wdth famished eyes upon coarse fare 
steaming behind dingy windows, longing for a 
pen'orth of pease pudding, and not having the 
penny to buy it — to feel that a crust would be 
delicious, and that a bone would be a 
banquet. 

Hunger is a luxury to us, a piquant, flavour- 
giving sauce. It is well worth while to get 
hungry and thirsty, merely to discover how 
much gratification can be obtained from eating 
and drinking. If you wish to thoroughly 
enjoy your dinner, take a thirty-mile country 
walk after breakfast, and don't touch anything 
till you get back. How your eyes will glisten 



On Eating and Drinking. 165 

at sight of the white table-cloth and steaming 
dishes then ! With what a sigh of content you 
will put down the empty beer tankard, and 
take up your knife and fork ! And how 
comfortable you feel afterwards, as you push 
back your chair, light a cigar, and beam round 
upon everybody. 

Make sure, however, when adopting this 
plan, that the good dinner is really to be had 
at the end, or the disappointment is trying. I 
remember once a friend and I — dear old Joe, 
it was. Ah ! how we lose one another in life's 
mist. It must be eight years since I last saw 
Joseph Taboys. How pleasant it would be to 
meet his jovial face again, to clasp his strong 
hand, and to hear his cheery laugh once more! 
He owes me fourteen shillings, too. Well, we 
were on a holiday together, and one morning 
we had breakfast early, and started for a 
tremendous long walk. We had ordered a 
duck for dinner over night. We said, '^Get a 
big one, because we shall come home awfully 
hungry;" and, as we were going out, our 
landlady came up in great spirits. She said, 
* ' I have got you gentlemen a duck, if you like. 



1 66 On Eating and Drinking. 

If you get through that, you'll do well; " and 
she held up a bird about the size of a door- 
mat. We chuckled at the sight, and said we 
would try. We said it with self-conscious 
pride, like men who knew their own power. 
Then we started. 

We lost our way, of course. I always do in 
the country, and it does make me so wild, 
because it is no use asking direction of any of 
the people you meet. One might as well 
inquire of a lodging-house slavey the way to 
make beds, as expect a country bumpkin to 
know the road to the next village. You have 
to shout the question about three times, before 
the sound of your voice penetrates his skull. 
At the third time, he slowly raises his head, 
and stares blankly at you. You yell it at him 
then for a fourth time, and he repeats it after 
you. He ponders while you could count a 
couple of hundred, after which, speaking at 
the rate of three words a minute, he fancies you 

^ 'couldn' t do better than . ' ' Here he catches 

sight of another idiot coming down the road, 
and bawls out to him the particulars, request- 
ing his advice. The two then argue the case 



On Eating and Drinking. 167 

for a quarter of an hour or so and finally agree 
that you had better go straight down the lane, 
round to the right, and cross by the third stile, 
and keep to the left by old Jimmy Milcher's 
cow-shed, and across the seven-acre field, and 
through the gate by Squire Grubbin's hay- 
stack, keeping the. bridle path for a while, till 
you come opposite the hill where the windmill 
used to be — but its gone now — and round to 
the right, leaving Stiggin's plantation behind 
you; and you say *' Thank you," and go away 
with a splitting headache, but without the 
faintest notion of your way, the only clear idea 
you have on the subject being that somewhere 
or other there is a stile which has to be got 
over; and, at the next turn, you come upon 
four stiles, all leading in different directions ! 
We had undergone this ordeal two or three 
times. We had tramped over fields. We had 
waded through brooks, and scrambled over 
hedges and walls. We had had a row as to 
whose fault it was that we had first lost our 
way. We had got thoroughly disagreeable, 
foot-sore, and weary. But, throughout it all, 
the hope of that duck kept us up. A fairy-like 



1 68 On Eating and Drinking. 

vision, it floated before our tired eyes, and 
drew us onward. The thought of it was as a 
trumpet call to the fainting. We talked of it, 
and cheered each other with our recollections 
of it. ''Come along," we said, ''the duck 
will be spoilt." 

We felt a strong temptation, at one point, 
to turn into a village inn we passed, and have 
a cheese and a few loaves between us ; but we 
heroically restrained ourselves ; we should 
enjoy the duck all the better for being 
famished. 

We fancied we smelt it when we got into 
the town and did the last quarter of a mile in 
three minutes. We rushed upstairs, and 
washed ourselves, atid changed our clothes, 
and came down, and pulled our chairs up to 
the table, and sat and rubbed our hands while 
the landlady removed the covers, when I seized 
the knife and fork and started to carve. 

It seemed to want a lot of carving. I 
struggled with it for about five minutes without 
making the slightest impression, and then Joe, 
who had been eating potatoes, wanted to know 
if it wouldn't be better for some one to do the 



On Eating and Drinking. 169 

job that understood carving. I took no notice 
of his foolish remark, but attacked the bird 
again; and so vigorously this time, that the 
animal left the dish, and took refuge in the 
fender. 

We soon had it out of that though, and I 
was prepared to make another effort. But Joe 
was getting unpleasant. He said that if he 
had thought we were to have a game of blind 
hockey with the dinner, he would have got a 
bit of bread and cheese outside. 

I was too exhausted to argue. I laid down 
the knife and fork with dignity, and took a 
side seat; and Joe went for the wretched 
creature. He worked away, in silence for a 
while, and then he muttered, "Damn the 
duck," and took his coat off. 

We did break the thing up at length, with 
the aid of a chisel; but it was perfectly im- 
possible to eat it, and we had to make a dinner 
off the vegetables and an apple tart. We tried 
a mouthful of duck, but it was like eating 
india-rubber. 

It was a wicked sin to kill that drake. But 
there ! there's no respect for old institutions in 
this country. 



1 70 On Eating and Drinking. 

I started this paper with the idea of writing 
about eating and drinking, but I seem to have 
confined my remarks entirely to eating as yet. 
Well, you see, drinking is one of those subjects 
with which it is unadvisable to appear too well 
acquainted. The days are gone by when it 
was considered manly to go to bed intoxicated 
every night, and a clear head and a firm hand 
no longer draw down upon their owner the 
reproach of effeminacy. On the contrary, in 
these sadly degenerate days, an evil-smelling 
breath, a blotchy face, a reeling gait, and a 
husky voice are regarded as the hall-marks of 
the cad rather than of the gentleman. 

Even now-a-days, though, the thirstiness of 
mankind is something supernatural. We are 
for ever drinking on one excuse or other. A 
man never feels comfortable unless he has a 
glass before him. We drink before meals, and 
with meals, and after meals. We drink when 
we meet a friend, also when we part from a 
friend. We drink when we are talking, when 
we are reading, and when we are thinking. 
We drink one another's healths, and spoil our 
own. We drink the Queen, and the Army, 



On Eating and Drinking. 171 

and the Ladies, and everybody else that is 
drinkable; and, I believe, if the supply ran 
short, we should drink our mothers-in-law. 

By-the-way, we never eat anybody's health, 
always drink it. Why should we not stand up 
now and then and eat a tart to somebody's 
success? 

To me, I confess, the constant necessity of 
drinking under which the majority of men 
labour is quite unaccountable. I can under- 
stand people drinking to drown care, or to 
drive away maddening thoughts, well enough. 
1 can understand the ignorant masses loving to 
soak themselves in drink — oh, yes, it's very 
shocking that they should, of course — very 
shocking to us who live in cosy homes, with 
all the graces and pleasures of life around us, 
that the dwellers in damp cellars and windy 
attics should creep from their dens of misery 
into the warmth and glare of the public-house 
bar, and seek to float for a. brief space away 
from their dull world upon a Lethe stream 
of gin. 

But think, before you hold up your hands in 
horror at their ill-living, what ''life " for these 



172 On Eating a?td Drinking. 

wretched creatures really means. Picture the 
squalid misery of their brutish existence, 
dragged on from year to year in the narrow, 
noisome room where, huddled like vermin in 
sewers, they welter, and sicken, and sleep; 
where dirt-grimed children scream and fight, 
and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff, and 
curse, and nag ; where the street outside teems 
with roaring filth, and the house around is a 
bedlam of riot and stench. 

Think what a sapless stick this fair flower of 
life must be to them, devoid of mind and soul. 
The horse in his stall scents the sweet hay, and 
munches the ripe corn contentedly. The watch- 
dog in his kennel blinks at the grateful sun, 
dreams of a glorious chase over the dewy fields, 
and wakes with a yelp of gladness to greet a 
caressing hand. But the clod-like life of these 
human logs never knows one ray of light. 
From the hour when they crawl from their 
comfortless bed to the hour when they lounge 
back into it again, they never live one moment 
of real life. Recreation, amusement, com- 
panionship, they know not the meaning of. 
Joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, love, friendship, 



On Eating and Drinking^ 173 

longing, despair, are idle words to them. From 
the day when their baby eyes first look out 
upon their sordid world to the day when, with 
an oath, they close them for ever, and their 
bones are shovelled out of sight, they never 
warm to one touch of human sympathy, never 
thrill to a single thought, never start to a single 
hope. In the name of the God of mercy let 
them pour the maddening liquor down their 
throats, and feel for one brief moment that they 
live ! • 

Ah ! we may talk sentiment as much as we 
like, but the stomach is the real seat of happi- 
ness in this world. The kitchen is the chief 
temple wherein we worship; its roaring fire is 
our vestal flame, and the cook is our great 
high-priest. He is a mighty magician and a 
kindly one. He soothes away all sorrow and 
care. He drives forth all enmity, gladdens all 
love. Our God is great, and the cook is his 
prophet. Let us eat, drink, and be merry. 



ON ''FURNISHED APARTMENTSr 

<</^H, you have some rooms to let." 

^^ ^'Mother!" 

''Well, what is it?" 

*' 'Ere's a gentleman about the rooms." 

"Ask 'im in. I'll be up in a minute." 

''Will yer step inside, sir? Mother' 11 be up 
in a minute." 

So you step inside, and, after a minute, 
" mother " comes slowly up the kitchen stairs, 
untying her apron as she comes, and calling 
down instructions to some one below about the 
potatoes. 

*'Good morning, sir," says ''mother," with 
a washed-out smile j "will you step this way, 
please ? ' ' 

"Oh, it's hardly worth while my coming 
up," you say; "what sort of rooms are they, 
and how much?" 

"Well," says the landlady, "if you'll step 
upstairs, I'll show them to you." 

174 



On ^^ Furnished Apartments y 175 

So, with a protesting murmur, meant to 
imply that any waste of time complained of 
hereafter must not be laid to your charge, you 
follow ''mother" upstairs. 

At the first landing, you run up against a pail 
and a broom, whereupon ''mother" expatiates 
upon the unreliability of servant girls, and 
bawls over the balusters for Sarah to come and 
take them away at once. When you get out- 
side the rooms, she pauses, with her hand upon 
the door, to explain to you that they are rather 
untidy just at present, as the last lodger left 
only yesterday ; and she also adds that this is 
their cleaning day — it always is. With this 
understanding, you enter, and both stand 
solemnly feasting your eyes upon the scene 
before you. The rooms cannot be said to ap- 
pear inviting. Even " mother's" face betrays 
no admiration. Untenanted "furnished apart- 
ments," viewed in the morning sunlight, do 
not inspire cheery sensations. There is a life- 
less air about them. It is a very different thing 
when you have settled down and are living in 
them. With your old familiar household gods 
to greet your gaze whenever you glance up, and 



176 On ' ' Furnished Apartments. ' ' 

all your little nick-nacks spread around you — 
with the photos of all the ^irls that you have 
loved and lost ranged upon the mantel-piece, 
and half-a-dozen disreputable-looking pipes 
scattered about in painfully prominent posi- 
tions — with one carpet slipper peeping from 
beneath the coal-box, and the other perched on 
the top of the piano — with the well-known 
pictures to hide the dingy walls, and those dear 
old friends, your books, higgledy-piggledy all 
over the place^ — with the bits of old blue china 
that your mother prized, and the screen she 
worked in those far bygone days, when the 
sweet old face was laughing and young, and the 
white soft hair tumbled in gold-brown curls 

from under the coal-scuddle bonnet 

Ah, old screen, what a gorgeous personage 
you must have been in your young days, when 
the tulips and roses and lilies (all growing 
from one stem) were fresh in their glistening 
sheen ! Many a summer and winter have come 
and gone since then, my friend, and you have 
played with the dancing firelight, until you 
have grown sad and grey. Your brilliant 
colours are fast fading now, and the envious 



On * * Furnished Apartments. " 177 

moths have gnawed your silken threads. You 
are withering away like the dead hands that 
wove you. Do you ever think of those dead 
hands? You seem so grave and thoughtful, 
sometimes, that I almost think you do. Come, 
you and I and the deep-glowing embers, let us 
talk together. Tell me, in your silent language, 
what you remember of those young days, when 
you lg,y on my little mother's lap, and her 
girlish fingers played with your rainbow tresses. 
Was there never a lad near, sometimes — never 
a lad who would seize one of those little hands 
to smother it with kisses, and who would persist 
in holding it, thereby sadly interfering with 
the progress of your making? Was not your 
frail existence often put in jeopardy by this 
same clumsy, headstrong lad, who would toss 
you disrespectfully aside that he — not satisfied 
with one — might hold both hands, and gaze 
up into the loved eyes ? I can see that lad 
now through the haze of the flickering twilight. 
He is an eager, bright-eyed boy, with pinching, 
dandy shoes and tight-fitting smalls, snowy 
shirt frill and stock, and — oh ! such curly hair. 
A wild, light-hearted boy ! Can he be the 
12 * 



i 



178 On ^ ^Furnished Apartments. ' * 

great, grave gentleman upon whose stick I used 

to ride cross-legged, the care-worn man into j| 

whose thoughtful face I used to gaze with 

childish reverence, and whom I used to call 

*^ father?" You say *^ yes," old screen; but 

are you quite sure ? It is a serious charge you 

are bringing ; can it be possible ? Did he have 

to kneel down in those wonderful smalls, and 

pick you up, and re -arrange you, before he was 

forgiven, and his curly head smoothed by my 

mother's little hand ? Ah ! old screen, and 

did the lads and the lassies go making love fifty 

years ago just as they do now ? Are men and 

women so unchanged? Did little maidens' 

hearts beat the same under pearl embroidered 

bodices as they do under Mother Hubbard 

cloaks? Have steel casques and chimney-pot 

hats made no difference to the brains that work 

beneath them ? Oh, Time ! great Chronos ! 

and is this your power ? Have you dried up 

seas and levelled mountains, and left the tiny 

human heart strings to defy you ? Ah, yes ! 

they were spun by a Mightier than thou, and 

they stretch beyond your narrow ken, for their 

ends are made fast in eternity. Ay, you may 



On * ^Furnished Apartments. " 1 79 

mow down the leaves and the blossoms, but the 
roots of life lie too deep for your sickle to 
sever. You refashion Nature's garments, but 
you cannot vary by a jot the throbbings of her 
pulse. The world roils round obedient to your 
laws, but the heart of man is not of your king- 
dom, for in its birthplace '' a thousand years 
are but as yesterday. ' * 

I am getting away, though, I fear, from my 
"furnished apartments," and I hardly know 
how to get back. But I have some excuse for 
my meanderings this time. It is a piece of 
old furniture that has led me astray, and fancies 
gather, somehow, round old furniture, like 
moss around old stones. One's chairs and 
tables get to be almost part of one's life, and to 
seem like quiet friends. What strange tales the 
wooden-headed old fellows could tell, did they 
but choose to speak ! At what unsuspected 
comedies and tragedies have they not assisted ! 
What bitter tears have been sobbed into that 
old sofa cushion ! What passionate whisperings 
the settee must have overheard ! 

New furniture has no charms for me, com- 
pared with old. It is the old things that we 



i8o On ^^ Furnished Apartments y 

love — the old faces, the old books, the old 
jokes. New furniture can make a palace, but 
it takes old furniture to make a home. Not 
merely old in itself, lodging-house furniture 
generally is that, but it must be old to us, old 
in associations and recollections. The furni- 
ture of furnished apartments, however ancient 
it may be in reality, is new to our eyes, and we 
feel as though we could never get on with it. 
As, too, in the case of all fresh acquaintances, 
whether wooden or human (and there is very 
little difference between the two species some- 
times) everything impresses you with its worst 
aspect. The knobby woodwork and shiny 
horse-hair covering of the easy-chair suggest 
anything but ease. The mirror is smoky. The 
curtains want washing. The carpet is frayed. 
The table looks as if it would go over the 
instant anything was rested on it. The grate 
is cheerless, the wall-paper hideous. The ceiling 
appears to have had coffee spilt all over it, and 
the ornaments — well, they are worse than the 
wall-paper. 

There must surely be some special and secret 
manufactory for the production of lodging- 



On ^^ Furnished Apartments,''^ i8i 

house ornaments. Precisely the same articles 
are to be found at every lodging-house all over 
the kingdom, and they are never seen anywhere 
else. There are the two — what do you call 
them? they stand one at each end of the 
mantel-piece, where they are never safe ; and 
they are hung round with long triangular slips 
of glass that clank against one another and 
make you nervous. In the commoner class of 
rooms, these works of art are supplemented by 
a couple of pieces of china which might each be 
meant to represent a cow sitting upon its hind 
legs, or a model of the temple of Diana at 
Ephesus, or a dog, or anything else you like to 
fancy. Somewhere about the room you come 
across a bilious-looking object, which, at first, 
you take to be a lump of dough, left about by 
one of the children, but which, on scrutiny, 
seems to resemble an underdone Cupid. This 
thing the landlady calls a statue. Then there 
is a '* sampler " worked by some idiot related 
to the family, a picture of the *' Huguenots," 
two or three Scripture texts, and a highly- 
framed and glazed certificate to the effect that 
the father has been vaccinated, or is an Odd- 
fellow, or something of that sort. 



1 82 On ^^Fur7iished Apartments V 

You examine these various attractions, and 
then dismally ask what the rent is. 

'* That's rather a good deal," you say, on 
hearing the figure. 

"Well, to tell you the truth," answers the 
landlady with a sudden burst of candour, '' I've 
always had " — (mentioning a sum a good deal 
in excess of the first-named amount), '^and 
before that I used to have" — (a still higher 
figure). 

What the rent of apartments must have been 
twenty years ago makes one shudder to think 
of. Every landlady makes you feel thoroughly 
ashamed of yourself by informing you, when- 
ever the subject crops up, that she used to get 
twice as much for her rooms as you are paying. 
Young men lodgers of the last generation must 
have been of a wealthier class than they are 
now, or they must have ruined themselves. I 
should have had to live in an attic. 

Curious, that in lodgings, the rule of life is 
reversed. The higher you get up in the world, 
the lower you come down in your lodgings. On 
the lodging-house ladder, the poor man is at 
the top, the rich man underneath. You start 



On ^^ Furnished Apartments ^ 183 

in the attic, and work your way down to the 
first floor. 

A good many great men have lived in attics, 
and some have died there. Attics, says the 
dictionary, are ''places where lumber is 
stored," and the world has used them to store 
a good deal of its lumber in at one time or 
another. Its preachers and painters and poets, 
its deep-browed men who will find out things, 
its fire-eyed men who will tell truths that no 
one wants to hear — these are the lumber that 
the world hides away in its attics. Haydn 
grew up in an attic, and Chatterton starved in 
one. Addison and Goldsmith wrote in garrets. 
Faraday and De Quincey knew them well. 
Dr. Johnson camped cheerfully in them, sleep- 
ing soundly — too soundly sometimes — upon 
their truckle beds, like the sturdy old soldier 
of fortune that he was, inured to hardship, and 
all careless of himself. Dickens spent his 
youth among them, Morland his old age — alas ! 
a drunken, premature old age. Hans 
Andersen, the fairy king, dreamt his sweet 
fancies beneath their sloping roofs. Poor, 
wayward-hearted Collins leant his head upon 



184 On ^^ Furnished Apartments V 

their crazy tables ; priggish Benjamin Franklin ; 
Savage, the wrong-headed, much troubled, 
when he could afford any softer bed than a 
doorstep; young Bloomfield, ^^ Bobby" Burns, 
Hogarth, Watts, the engineer — the roll is 
endless. Ever since the habitations of men 
were reared two stories high, has the garret 
been the nursery of genius. 

No one who honours the aristocracy of mind 
can feel ashamed of acquaintanceship with 
them. Their damp-stained walls are sacred to 
the memory of noble names. If all the wisdom 
of the world and all its art — all the spoils that 
it has won from Nature, all the fire that it has 
snatched from Heaven — were gathered together 
and divided into heaps, and we could point 
and say, for instance : — These mighty truths 
were flashed forth in the brilliant salon, amidst 
the ripple of light laughter and the sparkle of 
bright eyes ; and This deep knowledge was 
dug up in the quiet study, where the bust of 
Pallas looks serenely down on leather-scented 
shelves ; and This heap belongs to the crowded 
street; and That to the daisied field, — the 
heap that would tower up high above the rest, 



On ^^ Furnished Apartments y 185 

as a mountain above hills, would be the one 
at which we should look up and say : this 
noblest pile of all — these glorious paintings 
and this wondrous music, these trumpet 
words, these solemn thoughts, these daring 
deeds, they were forged and fashioned amidst 
misery and pain in the sordid squalor of the 
city garret. There, from their eyries, while the 
world heaved and throbbed below, the kings 
of men sent forth their eagle thoughts to wing 
their flight through the ages. There, where 
the sunlight streaming through the broken 
panes, fell on rotting boards and crumbling 
walls; there, from their lofty thrones, those 
rag-clothed Joves have hurled their thunder- 
bolts and shaken, before now, the earth to its 
foundations. 

Huddle them up in your lumber-rooms, oh, 
world ! Shut them fast in, and turn the key of 
poverty upon them. Weld close the bars, and 
let them fret their hero lives away within the 
narrow cage. Leave them there to starve, and 
rot, and die. Laugh at the frenzied beatings 
of their hands against the door. Roll onward 
in your dust and noise, and pass them by, for- 
gotten. 



1 86 On '■^Furnished Aparifnents^ 

But take care, lest -they turn and sting you. 
All do not, like the fabled Phoenix, warble 
sweet melodies in their agony ; sometimes they 
spit venom — venom you must breathe whether 
you will or no, for you cannot seal their 
mouths, though you may fetter their limbs. 
You can lock the door upon them, but they 
burst open their shaky lattices, and call out 
over the housetops so that men cannot but 
hear. You hounded wild Rousseau into the 
meanest garret of the Rue St. Jacques, and 
jeered at his angry shrieks. But the thin, 
piping tones swelled, a hundred years later, 
into the sullen roar of the French Revolution, 
and civilisation to this day is quivering to the 
reverberations of his voice. 

As for myself, however, I like an attic. Not 
to live in : as residences they are inconvenient. 
There is too much getting up and down stairs 
connected with them to please me. It puts 
one unpleasantly in mind of the tread-mill. 
The form of the ceiling offers too many facili- 
ties for bumping your head, and too few for 
shaving. And the note of the tom cat, as he 
sings to his love in the stilly night, outside on 



On ' ^Furnished Apartments. " 187 

the tiles, becomes positively distasteful when 
heard so near. 

No, for living in, give me a suite of rooms 
on the first floor of a Picadilly mansion (I wish 
somebody would !); but, for thinking in, let 
me have an attic up ten flights of stairs in the 
densest quarter of the city. I have all Herr 
Teufelsdrockh's affection for attics. There is a 
sublimity about their loftiness. I love to '*sit 
at ease and look down upon the wasps' nest 
beneath;" to listen to the dull murmur of the 
human tide, ebbing and flowing ceaselessly 
through the narrow streets and lanes below. 
How small men seem, how like a swarm of ants 
sweltering in endless confusion on their tiny 
hill! How pretty seems the work on which 
they are hurrying and skurrying ! How child- 
ishly they jostle against one another, and turn 
to snarl and scratch ! They jabber and screech 
and curse, but their puny voices do not reach 
up here. They fret, and fume, and rage, and 
pant, and die ; '' but I, mein Werther, sit 
above it all; I am alone with the stars." 

The most extraordinary attic I ever came 
across was one a friend and T once shared, many 



1 88 On ^^ Furnished Apartments y 

years ago. Of all eccentrically planned things, 
from Bradshaw to the maze at Hampton Court, 
that room was the eccentricalist. The archi- 
tect who designed it must have been a genius, 
though I cannot help thinking that his talents 
would have been better employed in contriving 
puzzles than in shaping human habitations. 
No figure in Euclid could give any idea of that 
apartment. It contained seven corners, two 
of the walls sloped to a point, and the window 
was just over the fireplace. The only possible 
position for the bedstead was between the door 
and the cupboard. To get anything out of the 
cupboard, we had to scramble over the bed, 
and a large percentage of the various commod- 
ities thus obtained were absorbed by the bed- 
clothes. Indeed, so many things were spilled, 
and dropped upon the bed that, towards night 
time, it had become a sort of small co-operative 
store. Coal was what it always had most in 
stock. We used to keep our coal in the bottom 
part of the cupboard, and, when any was 
wanted, we had to climb over the bed, fill a 
shovelful, and then crawl back. It was an 
exciting moment when we reached the middle 



On ^^ Furnished Apartments y 189 

of the bed. We would hold our breath, fix our 
eyes upon the shovel, and poise ourselves for 
the last move. The next instant, we, and the 
coals, and the shovel, and the bed would be 
all mixed up together. 

I've heard of people going into raptures over 
beds of coal. We slept in one every night, and 
were not in the least stuck up about it. 

But our attic, unique though it was, had by 
no means exhausted the architect's sense of 
humour. The arrangement of the whole house 
was a marvel of originality. All the doors 
opened outwards, so that if any one wanted to 
leave a room at the same moment that you were 
coming downstairs it was unpleasant for you. 
There was no ground-floor, its ground-floor 
belonged to a house in the next court, and the 
front door opened direct upon a flight of stairs 
leading down to the cellar. Visitors, on enter- 
ing the house, would suddenly shoot past the 
person who had answered the door to them, 
and disappear down these stairs. Those of a 
nervous temperament used to imagine that it 
was a trap laid for them, and would shout mur- 
der, as they lay on their backs at the bottom, 
till somebody came and picked them up. 



i^o On ^^ Furnished Apartments y 

It is a long time ago, now, that I last saw the 
inside of an attic. I have tried various floors 
since, but I have not found that they have made 
much diiference to me. Life tastes much the 
same, whether we quaff it from a golden 
goblet, or drink it out of a stone mug. The 
hours come laden with the same mixture of joy 
and sorrow, no matter where we wait for them. 
A waistcoat of broadcloth or of fustian is alike 
to an aching heart, and we laugh no merrier on 
velvet cushions than we did on wooden chairs. 
Often have I sighed in those low-ceiling' d 
rooms, yet disappointments have come neither 
less nor lighter since I quitted them. Life 
works upon a compensating balance, and the 
happiness we gain in one direction we lose in 
another. As our means increase, so do our 
desires; and we never stand midway between 
the two. When we reside in an attic, we enjoy 
a supper of fried fish and stout. When we 
occupy the first floor, it takes an elaborate 
dinner at the *' Continental" to give us the 
same amount of satisfaction. 



ON DRESS AND DEPORTMENT, 



' I "HEY say — people who ought to be ashamed 
■*• of themselves do — that the consciousness 
of being well dressed imparts a blissfulness to 
the human heart that religion is powerless" to 
bestow. I am afraid these cynical persons are 
sometimes correct. I know that when 1 was a 
very young man (many, many years ago, as the 
story-books say), and wanted cheering up, I 
used to go and dress myself in all my best 
clothes. If I had been annoyed in any manner 
— if my washerwoman had discharged me, for 
instance; or my blank verse poem had been 
returned for the tenth time, with the editor's 
compliments, '^ and regrets that owing to want 
of space he is unable to avail himself of kind 
offer; " or I had been snubbed by the woman 

I loved as man never loved before. By the 

way, it's really extraordinary what a variety of 
ways of loving there must be. We all do it as 
it was never done before. I don't know how 

191 



192 On Dress and Deportment. 

our great-grandchildren will manage. They 
will have to do it on their heads by their time, 
if they persist in not clashing with any previous 
method. 

Well, as I was saying, when these unpleasant 
sort of things happened, and I felt crushed, I 
put on all my best clothes, and went out. It 
brought back my vanishing self-esteem. In a 
glossy new hat, and a pair of trousers with a 
fold down the front (carefully preserved by 
keeping them under the bed — I don't mean on 
the floor, you know, but between the bed and 
the mattress), I felt I was somebody, and that 
there were other washerwomen ; aye, and even 
other girls to love, and who would perhaps 
appreciate a clever, good-looking young fellow. 
/ didn't care : that was my reckless way. I 
would make love to other maidens, I felt that 
in those clothes I could do it. 

They have a wonderful deal to do with 
courting, clothes have. It is half the battle. 
At all events, the young man thinks so, and it 
generally takes him a couple of hours to get 
himself up for the occasion. His first half- 
hour is occupied in trying to decide whether 



On Dress and Deportment. 193 

to wear, his light suit with a cane and a drab 
billycock, or his black tails with a chimney-pot 
hat and his new umbrella. He is sure to be 
unfortunate in either decision. If he wears his 
light suit and takes the stick, it comes on to 
rain, and he reaches the house in a damp and 
muddy condition, and spends the evening 
trying to hide his boots. If, on the other 
hand, he decides in favour of the top hat and 
umbrella — nobody would ever dream of going 
out in a top hat without an umbrella : it would 
be like letting Baby (bless it) toddle out with- 
out its nurse. How I do hate a top hat ! One 
lasts me a very long while, I can tell you. I 
only wear it when — well, never mind when I 
wear it. It lasts me a very long while. I've 
had my present one five years. It was rather 
old-fashioned last summer, but the shape has 
come round again now, and I look quite 
stylish. 

But to return to our young man and his 
courting. If he starts off with the top hat and 
umbrella, the afternoon turns out fearfully hot, 
and the perspiration takes all the soap out of 
his moustache, and converts the beautifully- 

13 



194 On Dress and Deportment. 

arranged curl over his forehead into a limp 
wisp, resembling a lump of seaweed. The 
Fates are never favourable to the poor wretch. 
If he does by any chance reach the door in 
proper condition, she has gone out with her 
cousin, and won't be back till late. 

How a young lover, made ridiculous by the 
gawkiness of modern costume, must envy the 
picturesque gallants of seventy years ago ! 
Look at them (on the Christmas cards), with 
their curly hair and natty hats, their well- 
shaped legs encased in smalls, their dainty 
Hessian boots, their ruffling frills, their canes, 
and dangling seals. No wonder the little 
maiden in the big poke bonnet and the light 
blue sash, casts down her eyes, and is com- 
pletely won. Men could win hearts in clothes 
like that. But what can you expect from 
baggy trousers and a monkey jacket ? 

Clothes have more effect upon us than we 
imagine. Our deportment depends upon our 
dress. Make a man get into seedy, worn-out 
rags, and he will skulk along with his head 
hanging down, like a man going out to fetch 
his own supper beer. But deck out the same 



* 



On Dress and Deportment, 195 

article in gorgeous raiment and fine linen, and 
he will strut down the main thoroughfare, 
swinging his cane, and looking at the girls, as 
perky as a bantam cock. 

Clothes alter our very nature. A man could 
not help being fierce and daring with a plume 
in his bonnet, a dagger in his belt, and a lot 
of puffy white things all down his sleeves. 
But, in an ulster, he wants to get behind a 
lamp-post and call police. 

I am quite ready to admit that you can find 
sterling merit, honest worth, deep affection, 
and all such like virtues of the roast-beef and 
plum-pudding school, as much, and perhaps 
more, under broad-cloth and tweed as ever 
existed beneath silk and velvet j but the spirit 
of that knightly chivalry, that *' rode a tilt for 
lady's love," and ''fought for lady's smiles," 
needs the clatter of steel and the rustle of 
plumes to summon it from its grave between 
the dusty folds of tapestry and underneath the 
musty leaves of mouldering chronicles. 

The world must be getting old, I think ; it 
dresses so very soberly now. We have been 
through the infant period of humanity, when 



196 On Dress and Deportment. 

we used to run about with nothing on but a 
long, loose robe, and liked to have our feet 
bare. And then came the rough, barbaric age, 
the boyhood of our race. We didn't care 
what we wore then, but thought it nice to 
tattoo ourselves all over, and we never did 
our hair. And, after that, the world grew into 
a young man, and became foppish. It decked 
itself in flowing curls and scarlet doublets, and 
went courting, and bragging, and bouncing — 
making a brave show. 

But all those merry, foolish days of youth are 
gone, and we are very sober, very solemn — 
and very stupid, some say — now. The world 
is a grave, middle-aged gentleman in this 
nineteenth century, and would be shocked to 
see itself with a bit of finery on. So it dresses 
in black coats and trousers, and black hats, 
and black boots, and, dear me, it is such a 
very respectable gentleman — to think it could 
ever have gone gadding about as a troubadour 
or a knight-errant, dressed in all those fancy 
colours ! Ah, well ! we are more sensible in 
this age. 

Or, at least, we think ourselves so. It is a 



On Dress and Deportment. 197 

general theory now-a-days that sense and dulness 
go together. 

Goodness is another quality that always 
goes with blackness. Very good people in- 
deed, you will notice, dress altogether in 
black, even to gloves and neckties, and they 
will probably take to black shirts before long. 
Medium goods indulge in light trousers on 
weekdays, and some of them even go so far as 
to wear fancy waistcoats. On the other hand, 
people who care nothing for a future state go 
about in light suits ; and there have been 
known wretches so abandoned as to wear a 
white hat. Such people, however, are never 
spoken of in genteel society, and perhaps I 
ought not to have referred to them here. 

By the way, talking of light suits, have you 
ever noticed how people stare at you the first 
time you go out in a new light suit ? They do 
not notice it so much afterwards. The popu- 
lation of London have got accustomed to it 
by the third time you wear it. I say ^*you," 
because I am not speaking from my own ex- 
perience. I do not wear such things at all 
myself. As I said, only sinful people do so. 



198 On Dress and Deportment. 

I wish, though, it were not so, and that one 
could be good, and respectable, and sensible 
without making one's self a guy. I look in 
the glass sometimes at my two long, cylin- 
drical bags (so picturesquely rugged about the 
knees), my stand-up collar, and billycock hat, 
and wonder what right I have to go about 
making God's world hideous. Then wild and 
wicked thoughts come into my heart. I don't 
want to be good and respectable. (I never 
can be sensible, I'm told; so that don't mat- 
ter.) I want to put on lavender-coloured 
tights, with red velvet breeches and a green 
doublet, slashed with yellow ; to have a light 
blue silk cloak on my shoulder, and a black 
eagle's plume waving from my hat, and a big 
sword, and a falcon, and a lance, and a 
prancing horse, so that I might go about and 
gladden the eyes of the people. Why should 
we all try to look like ants, crawling over a dust- 
heap? Why shouldn't we dress a little gaily? I 
am sure, if we did, we should be happier. True, 
it is a little thing, but we are a little race, and 
what is the use of our pretending otherwise, 
and spoiling fun ? Let philosophers get them- 



On Dress and Deportment. 199 

selves up like old crows if they like. But let 
me be a butterfly. 

Women, at all events, ought to dress prettily. 
It is their duty. They are the flowers of the 
earth, and were meant to show it up. We 
abuse them a good deal, we jnen ; but, good- 
ness knows, the old world would be dull 
enough without their pretty dresses and fair 
faces. How they brighten up every place they 
come into ! What a sunny commotion they — 
relations, of course — make in our dingy bach- 
elor chambers ! and what a delightful litter their 
ribbons and laces, and gloves and hats, and 
parasols and 'kerchiefs make ! It is as if a wan- 
dering rainbow had dropt in to pay us a visit. 

It is one of the chief charms of the summer, 
to my mind, the way our little maids come out 
in pretty colours. I like to see the pink and blue, 
and white, glancing between the trees, dotting 
the green fields, and flashing back the sunlight. 
You can see the bright colours such a long way 
off. There are four white dresses climbing a 
hill in front of my window now. I can see 
them distinctly, though it is three miles away. 
I thought, at first, they were milestones out 



200 On Dress and Deportment. 

for a lark. It's so nice to be able to see the 
darlings a long way off. Especially if they 
happen to be your wife and your mother-in- 
lav/. 

Talking of fields and milestones, reminds me 
that I want to say, in all seriousness, a few 
words about women's boots. The women of 
these islands all wear boots too big for them. 
They can never get a boot to fit. The boot- 
makers do not keep sizes small enough. 

Over and over again have I known women 
sit down on the top rail of a stile, and declare 
they could not go a step farther, because their 
boots hurt them so ; and it has always been the 
same complaint — too big. 

It is time this state of things was altered. In 
the name of the husbands and fathers of Eng- 
land, I call upon the bootmakers to reform. 
Our wives, our daughters, and our cousins are 
not to be lamed and tortured with impunity. 
Why cannot ''narrow twos" be kept more in 
stock ? that is the size I find most women take. 

The waistband is another item of feminine 
apparel that is always too big. The dress- 
makers make these things so loose that the 



On Dress and Deportment. 201 

hooks and eyes by which they are fastened 
burst off, every now and then, with a report 
like thunder. 

Why women suffer these wrongs — why they 
do not insist in having their clothes made small 
enough for them, I cannot conceive. It can 
hardly be that they are disinclined to trouble 
themselves about matters of mere dress, for 
dress is the one subject that they really do 
think about. It is the only topic they ever get 
thoroughly interested in, and they talk about 
it all day long. If you see two women to- 
gether, you may bet your bottom dollar they 
are discussing their own or their friends' 
clothes. You notice a couple of child-like 
beings, conversing by a window, and you won- 
der what sweet, helpful words are falling from 
their sainted lips. So you move nearer, and 
then you hear one say — 

*' So I took in the waistband, and let out a 
seam, and it fits beautifully now." 

''Well," says the other, "I shall wear my 
plum-coloured body to the Jones's, with a yel- 
low plastron \ and they've got some lovely 
gloves at Puttick's, only one and elevenpence." 

I went for a drive through a part of Derby- 



202 On Dress and Deportment. 

shire once, with a couple of ladies. It was a 
beautiful bit of country, and they enjoyed 
themselves immensely. They talked dress- 
making the whole time. 

''Pretty view, that," I would say, waving 
my umbrella round. ''Look at those blue, 
distant hills ! That little white speck, nest- 
ling in the woods, is Chatsworth, and over 

there ' ' 

" Yes, very pretty indeed," one would reply. 
"Well, why not get a yard of sarsenet?" 
" What, and leave the skirt exactly as it is?" 
" Certainly. What place d'ye call this?" 
Then I would draw their attention to the 
fresh beauties that kept sweeping into view, 
and they would glance round, and say "charm- 
ing," " sweetly pretty, " and immediately go 
off into raptures over each other's pocket-hand- 
kerchiefs, and mourn with one another over 
the decadence of cambric frilling. 

I believe if two women were cast together 
upon a desert island, they would spend each 
day arguing the respective merits of sea-shells 
and birds' eggs, considered as trimmings, and 
would have a new fashion in fig leaves every 
month. 



On Dress and Deportment. 203 

Very young men think a good deal about 
clothes, but they don't talk about them to each 
other. They would not find much encourage- 
ment. A fop is not a favourite with his own sex. 
Indeed, he gets a good deal more abuse from 
them than is necessary. His is a harmless 
failing, and«it soon wears out. Besides, a man 
who has no foppery at twenty will be a slat- 
ternly, dirty-collar, unbrushed-coat man at 
forty. A little foppishness in a young man is 
good ; it is human. I like to see a young cock 
ruffle his feathers, stretch his neck and crow as 
if the whole world belonged to him. I don't 
like a modest, retiring man. Nobody does — 
not really, however much they may prate about 
modest worth, and other things they do not 
understand. 

A meek deportment is a great mistake in this 
world. Uriah Heap's father was a very poor 
judge of human nature, or he would not have 
told his son, as he did, that people liked 
humbleness. There is nothing annoys them 
more, as a rule. Rows are half the fun of life, 
and you can't have rows with humble, meek- 
hearted individuals. They turn away our wrath, 
and that is just what we do not want. We want 



204 On Dress and Deportment. 

to let it out. We have worked ourselves up into 
a state of exhilirating fury, and then just as we 
are anticipating the enjoyment of a vigorous set- 
to, they spoil all our plans with their exasper- 
ating humility. 

Xantippe's life must have been one long 
misery, tied to that calmly irritating man, Soc- 
rates. Fancy a married woman doomed to live 
on from day to day without one single quarrel 
with her husband ! A man ought to humour his 
wife in these things. Heaven knows their lives 
are dull enough, poor girls. They have none 
of the enjoyments we have. They go to no 
political meetings ; they may not even belong 
to the local amateur parliament ; they are ex- 
cluded from smoking carriages on the Metro- 
politan railway, and they never see a comic 
paper — or if they do, they do not know it is 
comic : nobody tells them. 

Surely, with existence such a dreary blank for 
them as this, we might provide a little row for 
their amusement now and then, even if we do 
not feel inclined for it ourselves. A really sen- 
sible man does so, and is loved accordingly, for 
it is little acts of kindness such as this that go 



On Dress and Deportment. 205 



straight to a woman's heart. It is such like 
proofs of loving self-sacrifice that make her tell 
her female friends what a good husband he was 
— after he is dead. 

Yes, poor Xantippe must have had a hard 
time of it. The bucket episode was particularly 
sad for her. Poor woman ! she did think she 
would rouse him up a bit with that. She had 
taken the trouble to fill the bucket, perhaps 
been a long way to get specially dirty water. 
And she waited for him. And then to be met 
in such a way, after all ! Most likely she sat 
down, and had a good cry afterwards. It must 
have seemed all so hopeless to the poor child ; 
and, for all we know, she had no mother to 
whom she could go and abuse him. 

What was it to her that her husband was a 
great philosopher? Great philosophy don't 
count in married life. 

There was a very good little boy once who 
wanted to go to sea. And the captain asked 
him what he could do. He said he could do the 
multiplication table backwards, and paste sea- 
weed in a book ; that he knew how many times 
the word " begat " occurred in the Old Testa- 



2o6 On Dress and Deportment. 

ment j and could recite '* The Boy stood on the 
Burning Deck," and Wordsworth's "We are 
Seven." 

" Werry good — werry good, indeed," said 
the man of the sea, '^ and ken yer kerry 
coals ? " 

It is just the same when you want to marry. 
Great ability is not required so much as little 
usefulness. Brains are at a discount in the 
married state. There is no demand for them, 
no appreciation even. Our wives sum us up 
according to a standard of their own, in which 
brilliancy of intellect obtains no marks. Your 
lady and mistress is not at all impressed by 
your cleverness and talent, my dear reader — • 
not in the slightest. Give her a man who can 
do an errand neatly, without attempting to use 
his own judgment over it, or any damned non- 
sense of that kind ; and who can be trusted to 
hold a child the right way up, and not make 
himself objectionable whenever there is luke- 
warm mutton for dinner. That is the sort of a 
husband a sensible woman likes; not one of 
your scientific or literary nuisances, who go 
upsetting the whole house, and putting every- 
body out with their foolishness. 



ON MEMORY, 



I 



** I remember, I remember, 
In days of chill November, 
How the blackbird on the 

FORGET the rest. It is the beginning of 
the first piece of poetry I ever learnt ; for 

" Hey, diddle diddle. 
The cat and the fiddle," 



I take no note of, it being of a frivolous 
character, and lacking in the qualities of true 
poetry. I collected fourpence by the recital of 
*' I remember, I remember." I knew it was 
fourpence, because they told me that if I kept 
it until I got twopence more I should have six- 
pence, which argument, albeit undeniable, 
moved me not, and the money was squandered, 
to the best of my recollection, on the very next 
morning, although upon what memory is a 
blank. 

That is just the way with Memory ; nothing 
207 



2o8 On Memory, 

that she brings to us is complete. She is a 
wilful child ; all her toys are broken. I 
remember tumbling into a huge dusthole, when 
a very small boy, but I have not the faintest 
recollection of ever getting out again ; and, if 
memory were all we had to trust to, I should 
be compelled to believe I was there still. At 
another time — some years later — I was assisting 
at an exceedingly interesting love scene; but 
the only thing about it I can call to mind 
distinctly is that, at the most critical moment, 
somebody suddenly opened the door and said : 
** Emily, you're wanted," in a sepulchral tone, 
that gave one the idea the police had come for 
her. All the tender words she said to me, and 
all the beautiful things I said to her, are utterly 
forgotten. 

Life, altogether, is but a crumbling ruin, 
when we turn to look behind : a shattered 
column here, where a massive portal stood ; 
the broken shaft of a window to mark my 
lady's bower; and a mouldering heap of 
blackened stones where the glowing flames 
once leapt, and, over all, the tinted lichen and 
the ivy clinging green. 



On Memory. 



209 



For everything looms pleasant through the 
softening haze of time. Even the sadness that 
is past seems sweet. Our boyish days look 
very merry to us now, all nutting, hoop, and 
gingerbread. The snubbings and toothaches 
and the Latin verbs are all forgotten — the 
Latin verbs especially. And we fancy we were 
very happy when we were hobbledehoys, and 
loved ; and we wish that we could love again. 
We never think of the heartaches, or the 
sleepless nights, or the hot dryness of our 
throats, when she said she could never be any- 
thing to us but a sister — as if any man wanted 
more sisters ! 

Yts, it is the brightness, not the darkness, 
that we see when we look back. The sunshine 
casts no shadows on the past. The road that 
we have traversed stretches very fair behind us. 
We see not the sharp stones. We dwell but on 
the roses by the wayside, and the strong briars 
that stung us are, to our distant eyes, but 
gentle tendrils weaving in the wind. God be 
thanked that it is so — that the ever-lengthening 
chain of memory has only pleasant links, and 
that the bitterness and sorrow of to-day are 
smiled at on the morrow. 14 



2IO On Memory. 

It seems as though the brightest side of 
everything were also its highest and best, so 
that, as our little lives sink back behind us into 
the dark sea of forgetfulness, all that which 
is the lightest and the most gladsome is the last 
to sink, and stands above the waters, long in 
sight, when the angry thoughts and smarting 
pain are buried deep below the waves and 
trouble us no more. 

It is this glamour of the past, I suppose, 
that makes old folk talk so much nonsense 
about the days when they were young. The 
world appears to have been a very superior sort 
of place then, and things were more like what 
they ought to be. Boys were hoys then, and 
girls were very different. Also winters were 
something like winters, and summers not at all 
the wretched things we get put off with now-a- 
days. As for the wonderful deeds people did 
in those times, and the extraordinary events 
that happened, it takes three strong men to 
believe half of them. 

I like to hear one of the old boys telling all 
about it to a party of youngsters who he knows 
cannot contradict him. It is odd if, after a 



On Memory. 211 

while, he doesn't swear that the moon shone 
every night when he was a boy, and that 
tossing mad bulls in a blanket was the favourite 
sport at his school. 

It always has been, and always will be the 
same. The old folk of our grandfathers' 
young days sang a song bearing -exactly the 
same burden; and the young folk of to-day 
will drone out precisely similar nonsense for 
the aggravation of the next generation. ''Oh 
give me back the good old days of fifty years 
ago," has been the cry ever since Adam's fifty- 
first birthday. Take up the literature of 1835, 
and you will find the poets and novelists 
asking for the same impossible gift, as did the 
German Minnesingers, long before them, and 
the old Norse Saga writers long 'before that. 
And for the same thing sighed the early 
prophets and the philosophers of ancient 
Greece. From all accounts, the world has 
been getting worse and worse ever since it was 
created. All I can say is that it must have 
been a remarkably delightful place when it was 
first opened to the public, for it is very pleasant 
even now, if you only keep as much as possible 



212 On Memory. 

in the sunshine, and take the rain good- 
temperedly. 

Yet there is no gainsaying but what it must 
have been somewhat sweeter in that dewy 
morning of creation, when it was young and 
fresh, when the feet of the tramping millions 
had not trodden its grass to dust, nor the din 
of the myriad cities chased the silence for ever 
away. Life must have been noble and solemn 
to those free-footed, loose-robed fathers of the 
human race, walking hand-in-hand with God 
under the great sky. They lived in sun-kissed 
tents amidst the lowing herds. They took 
their simple wants from the loving hand of 
Nature. They toiled and talked and thought; 
and the great earth rolled around in stillness, 
not yet laden with trouble and wrong. 

Those days are past now. The quiet child- 
hood of Humanity, spent in the far-oif forest 
glades, and by the murmuring rivers, is gone 
for ever ; and human life is deepening down to 
manhood amidst tumult, doubt, and hope. Its 
age of restful peace is past. It has its work to 
finish, and must hasten on. What that work 
may be — what this world's share is in the great 



On Memory. 213 

Design — we know not, though our unconscious 
hands are helping to accomplish it. Like the 
tiny coral insect, working deep under the dark 
waters, we strive and struggle each for our own 
little ends, nor dream of the vast Fabric we are 
building up for God. 

Let us have done with vain regrets and long- 
ings for the days that never will be ours again. 
Our work lies in front, not behind us; and 
'' Forward ! " is our motto. Let us not sit with 
folded hands, gazing upon the past as if it were 
the building : it is but the foundation. Let us 
not waste heart and life, thinking of what might 
have been, and forgetting the may-be that lies 
before us. Opportunities flit by while we sit 
regretting the chances we have lost, and the 
happiness that comes to us we heed not, because 
of the happiness that is gone. 

Years ago, when I used to wander of an 
evening from the fireside to the pleasant land 
of fairy tales, I met a doughty knight and true. 
Many dangers had he overcome, in many lands 
had been ; and all men knew him for a brave 
and well tried knight, and one that knew not 
fear ; except, maybe, upon such seasons when 



214 On Memory. 

even a brave man might feel afraid, and yet not 
be ashamed. Now, as this knight, one day, 
was pricking wearily along a toilsome road, his 
heart misgave him, and was sore within him, 
because of the trouble of the way. Rocks, 
dark iand of a monstrous size, hung high above 
his head, and like enough it seemed unto the 
knight that they should fall, and he lie low 
beneath them. Chasms there were on either 
side, and darksome caves, wherein fierce rob- 
bers lived, and dragons, very terrible, whose 
jaws dripped blood. And upon the road there 
hung a darkness as of night. So it came over 
that good knight that he would no more press 
forward, but seek another road, less grievously 
beset with difficulty unto his gentle steed. But, 
when in haste he turned and looked behind, 
much marvelled our brave knight, for, lo! of 
all the way that he had ridden, there was naught 
for eye to see; but, at his horse's heels, there 
yawned a mighty gulf, whereof no man might 
ever spy the bottom, so deep was that same gulf. 
Then, when Sir Ghelent saw that of going back 
there was none, he prayed to good Saint Cuth- 
bert, and setting spurs into his steed, rode for- 



On Memory. ' 215 

ward bravely and most joyously. And naught 
harmed him 

There is no returning on' the road of life. 
The frail bridge of Time, on which we tread, 
sinks back into eternity at every step we take. 
The past is gone from us forever. It is gathered 
in and garnered. It belongs to us no more. 
No single word can ever be unspoken ; no 
single step retraced. Therefore, it beseems us, 
as true knights, to prick on bravely, nor idly 
weep because we cannot now recall. 

A new life begins for us with every second. 
Let us go forward joyously to meet it. We must 
press on, whether we will or no, and we shall 
walk better with our eyes before us than with 
them ever cast behind. 

A friend came to me the other day, and 
urged me very eloquently to learn some won- 
derful system by which you never forget 
anything. I don't know why he was so eager 
on the subject, unless it be that I occasionally 
borrow an umbrella, and have a knack of coming 
out, in the middle of a game of whist, with a 
mild, ^'Lor, I've been thinking all along that 
clubs were trumps." I declined the suggestion, 



2l6 



On Memory. 



however, in spite of the advantages he so 
attractively set forth. I have no wish to remem- 
ber everything. There are many things in 
most men's lives that had better be forgotten. 
There is that time, many years ago, when we 
did not act quite as honourably, quite as up- 
rightly, as we, perhaps, should have done — that 
unfortunate deviation from the path of strict 
probity we once committed, and in which, more 
unfortunate still, we were found out — that act 
of folly, of meanness, of wrong. Ah ! well, 
we paid the penalty, suffered the maddening 
hours of vain remorse, the hot agony of shame, 
the scorn, perhaps, of those we loved. Let us 
forget. Oh, Father Time, lift with your kindly 
hands those bitter memories from off our over- 
burdened hearts, for griefs are ever coming to 
us with the coming hours, and our little strength 
is only as the day ! 

Not that the past should be buried. The 
music of life would be mute if the chords of 
memory were snapped asunder. It is but the 
poisonous weeds, not the flowers, that we should 
root out from the garden of Mnemosyne. Do 
you remember Dickens's '* Haunted Man," 



On Memory. 217 

how he prayed for forgetfulness, and how, when 
his prayer was answered, he prayed for memory 
once more? We do not want all the ghosts 
laid. It is only the haggard, cruel-eyed spec- 
tres that we flee from. Let the gentle, kindly 
phantoms haunt us as they will ; we are not 
afraid of them. 

Ah, me ! the world grows very full of ghosts 
as we grow older. We need not seek in dismal 
churchyards nor sleep in moated granges, to see 
their shadowy faces, and hear the rustling of 
their garments in the night. Every house, every 
room, every creaking chair has its own parti- 
cular ghost. They haunt the empty chambers 
of our lives, they throng around us like dead 
leaves, whirled in the autumn wind. Some are 
living, some are dead. We know not. We 
clasped their hands once, loved them, quar- 
relled with them, laughed with them, told 
them our thoughts and hopes and aims, as they 
told us theirs, till it seemed our very hearts had 
joined in a grip that would defy the puny power 
of Death. They are gone now ; lost to us for- 
ever. Their eyes will never look into ours 
again, and their voices we shall never hear. 



2l8 



On Memory. 



Only their ghosts come to us, and talk with us. 
We see them, dim and shadowy, through our 
tears. We stretch our yearning hands to them, 
but they are air. 

Ghosts ! they are with us night and day. 
They walk beside us in the busy street, under 
the glare of the sun. They sit by us in the 
twilight at home. We see their little faces 
looking from the windows of the old school- 
house. We meet them in the woods and lanes, 
where we shouted and played as boys. Hark ! 
cannot you hear their low laughter from behind 
the blackberry bushes, and their distant whoops 
along the grassy glades ? Down here, through 
the quiet fields, and by the wood, where the 
evening shadows are lurking, winds the path 
where we used to watch for her at sunset. 
Look, she is there now, in the dainty, white 
frock we knew so well, with the big bonnet 
dangling from her little hands, and the sunny 
brown hair all tangled. Five thousand miles 
away ! Dead for all we know ! What of that ? 
She is beside us now, and we can look into her 
laughing eyes, and hear her voice. She will 
vanish at the stile by the wood, and we shall 



On Memory. 219 

be alone ; and the shadows will creep out 
across the fields, and the night wind will sweep 
past moaning. Ghosts ! They are always 
with us, and always will be, while the sad old 
world keeps echoing to the sob of long good- 
byes, while the cruel ships sail away across the 
great seas, and the cold, green earth lies heavy 
on the hearts of those we loved. 

But, oh, ghosts, the world would be sadder 
still without you. Come to us, and speak to 
us, oh ! you ghosts of our old loves. Ghosts 
of playmates, and of sweethearts, and old 
friends, of all you laughing boys and girls, oh, 
come to us, and be with us, for the world is 
very lonely, and new friends and faces are not 
like the old, and we cannot love them, nay, 
nor laugh with them as we have loved and 
laughed with you. And when we walked to- 
gether, oh, ghosts of our youth, the world was 
very gay and bright ; but now it has grown 
old, and we are growing weary, and only you 
can bring the brightness and the freshness 
back to us. 

Memory is a rare ghost raiser. Like a haunted 
house, its walls are ever echoing to unseen feet. 



2 20 On Memory. 

Through the broken casements we watch the 
flitting shadows of the dead, and the saddest 
shadows of them all are the shadows of our own 
dead selves. 

Oh, those young bright faces, so full of truth 
and honour, of pure, good thoughts, of noble 
longings, how reproachfully they look upon us, 
with their deep, clear eyes ! 

I fear they have good cause for their sorrow, 
poor lads. Lies and cunning, and disbelief 
have crept into our hearts since those pre-shaving 
days — and we meant to be so great and good. 

It is well we cannot see into the future. 
There are few boys of fourteen who would not 
feel ashamed of themselves at forty. 

I like to sit and have a talk sometimes with 
that odd little chap that was myself long ago. 
I think he likes it too^ for he comes so often of 
an evening when I am alone with my pipe, 
listening to the whispering of the flames. I see 
his solemn little face looking at me through the 
scented smoke as it floats upward, and I smile 
at him ; and he smiles back at me, but his is 
such a grave, old-fashioned smile. We chat 
about old ' times ; and now and then he takes 



f 



On Memory. 221 

me by the hand, and then we slip through the 
black bars of the grate and down the dusky 
glowing caves to the land that lies behind the 
firelight. There we find the days that used to 
be, and we wander along them together. He 
tells me as we walk all he thinks and feels. I 
laugh at him now and then, but the next mo- 
ment I wish I had not, for he looks so grave, I 
am ashamed of being frivolous. Besides, it is 
not showing proper respect to one so much 
older than myself — to one who was myself so 
very long before / became myself. 

We don't talk much at first, but look at one 
another : I down at his curly hair and little 
blue bow, he up sideways at me as he trots. 
And, somehow, I fancy the shy, round eyes do 
not altogether approve of me, and he heaves a 
little sigh, as though he were disappointed. 
But, after a while his bashfulness wears off, and 
he begins to chat. He tells me his favourite 
fairy tales, he can do up to six times, and he 
has a guinea-pig, and pa says fairy tales aint 
true ; and isn't it a pity, 'cos he would so like 
to be a knight and fight a dragon and marry a 
beautiful princess. But he takes a more prac- 
tical view of life when he reaches seven, and 






1 .,•; 



222 



On Memory. 



would prefer to grow up, be a bargee, and earn 
a lot of money. Maybe, this is the conse- 
quence of falling in love, which he does about 
this time, with the young lady at the milk-shop 
set. six. (God bless her little ever-dancing feet, 
whatever size they may be now !) He must 
be very fond of her, for he gives her one day 
his chiefest treasure, to wit, a huge pocket- 
knife with four rusty blades and a corkscrew, 
which latter has a knack of working itself out 
in some mysterious manner, and sticking into 
its owner's leg. She is an affectionate little 
thing, and she throws her arms round his neck 
and kisses him for it, then and there, outside 
the shop. But the stupid world (in the person 
of the boy at the cigar emporium next door) 
jeers at such tokens of love. Whereupon my 
young friend very properly prepares to punch 
the head of the boy at the cigar emporium 
•next door ; but fails in the attempt, the boy at 
the cigar emporium next door punching his in- 
stead. 

And then comes school life, with its bitter 
little sorrows and its joyous shoutings, its jolly 
larks, and its hot tears falling on beastly Latin 
grammars and silly old copy-books. It is at 



On Memory. 223 

school that he injures himself for life — as I 
firmly believe — trying to pronounce German; 
and it is there, too, that he learns of the im- 
portance attached by the French nation to 
pens, ink, and paper. ''Have you pens, ink, 
and paper?" is the first question asked by one 
Frenchman of another on their meeting. The 
other fellow has not any of them, as a rule, but 
says that the uncle of his brother has got them 
all three. The first fellow doesn't appear to 
care a hang about the uncle of the other fel- 
low's brother; what he wants to know now is, 
has the neighbour of the other fellow's mother 
got 'em? ''The neighbour of my mother has 
no pens, no ink, and no paper," replies the 
other man, beginning to g^\ wild. "Has the 
child of thy female gardener some pens, some 
ink, or some paper?" He has him there. 
After worrying enough about these wretched 
inks, pens, and paper to make everybody mis-* 
erable, it turns out that the child of his own 
female gardener hasn't any. Such a discovery 
would shut up any one but a French exercise 
man. It has no effect at all, though, on this 
shameless creature. He never thinks of apolo- 
gising, but says his aunt has some mustard. 



2 24 On Memory. 

So, ill the acquisition of more or less useless 
knowledge, soon happily to be forgotten, boy- 
hood passes away. The red-brick schoolhouse 
fades from view, and we turn down into the 
world's high road. My little friend is no 
longer little now. The short jacket has sprouted 
tails. The battered cap, so useful as a combi- 
nation of pocket-handkerchief, drinking-cup, 
and weapon of attack, has grown high and 
glossy; and instead of a slate-pencil in his 
mouth there is a cigarette, the smoke of which 
troubles hint, for it will get up his nose. He_ 
tries a cigar a little later on, as being more 
stylish — a big, black Havannah. It doesn't 
seem altogether to agree with him, for I find 
him sitting over a bucket in the back kitchen 
afterwards, solemnly swearing never to smoke 
again. 

And now his moustache begins to be almost 
visible to the naked eye, whereupon he im- 
mediately takes to brandy-and-sodas, and 
fancies himself a man. He talks about "■ two 
to one against the favourite," refers to actresses 
as *^ Little Emmy," and ''Kate," and 
*'Baby," and murmurs about his ''losses at 
cards the other night," in a style implying 



On Memory. 225 

that thousands have been squandered, though, 
to do him justice, the actual amount is most 
probably one-and-twopence. Also, if I see 
aright — for it is always twilight in this land of 
memories — he sticks an eyeglass in his eye, and 
stumbles over everything. 

His female relations, much troubled at these 
things, pray for him (bless their gentle hearts) ! 
and see visions of Old Bailey trials and halters 
as the only possible outcome of such reckless 
dissipation ; and the prediction of his first 
schoolmaster, that he would come to a bad 
end, assumes the proportions of inspired 
prophecy. 

He has a lordly contempt at this age for the 
other sex, a blatantly good opinion of himself, 
and sociably patronising manner towards all 
the elderly male friends of the family. 
Altogether, it must be confessed, he is some- 
what of a nuisance about this time. 

It does not last long, though. He falls in 
love in a little while, and that soon takes the 
bounce out of him. I notice his boots are 
much too small for him now, and his hair is 
fearfully and wonderfully arranged. He reads 
poetry more than he used, and he keeps a rhym- 



11 



226 



On Memory. 



ing dictionary in his bedroom. Every morn- 
ing, on die floor, Emily Jane finds scraps of 
torn-up paper, and reads thereon of *' cruel 
hearts and love's deep darts," of *^ beauteous 
eyes and lovers' sighs," and much more of the 
old, old song that lads so love to sing, and 
lassies love to listen to, while giving their 
dainty heads a toss, and pretending never to 
hear. 

The course of love, however, seems not to 
have run smoothly, for, later on, he takes more 
walking exercise and less sleep, poor boy, than 
is good for him ; and his face is suggestive of 
anything but wedding bells and happiness ever 
after. 

And here he seems to vanish. The little, 
boyish self that has grown up beside me as we 
walked, is gone. 

I am alone, and the road is very dark. I 
stumble on, I know not how nor care, for the 
way seems leading nowhere, and there is no 
light to guide. 

But at last the morning comes, and I find 
that I have grown into myself. 



Kj^V 



Ki^ 



,,^v/*<"' 



-- \,^ 








■d 




\^ 


^^^^jR.^ 


■ ^^i' 


"%, 


l^^pJ 




E 




^_ ,^^^*^.^^ 


/. 


/I • ■' ■ ■ 



'■'«*L«J<^ 



n^"^ 




^ - 





MiM 











